


At Least It's Not Sports

by strictlyamess



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Sexual Content, cast party shenanigans, let me have this okay, self indulgent as heck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-22 08:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13760190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strictlyamess/pseuds/strictlyamess
Summary: Eddie Kaspbrak hates the theatre.Well, no he doesn’t. He just hates actors. They get in his way.…well, no he doesn’t. Most of them are great. He just hates one actor - Richie fucking bigmouth bighead idiot Tozier.……………well. No he doesn’t.(or: stage manager Eddie and acting dork Richie doing the high school drama club thing!)





	1. Freshman Year

Eddie Kaspbrak hated theatre.

Well, no, that wasn’t totally true. In eighth grade, when they’d gotten to go on a field trip in the middle of the day to see a special performance of the high school musical, he’d thought it was pretty okay. The songs were fun, and he’d gotten to miss school.

So...he didn’t _hate_ hate theatre, per se. He could tolerate a show. Still, that was absolutely no reason to be here, on the stage, right now, doing this stupid improv game.

The game was simple: everyone stood in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person in the middle pantomimed something until someone from the outside of the circle asked them what they were doing. When that happened, the person was supposed to say something completely unrelated to whatever it was they were pantomiming (so if you were pantomiming mowing the lawn, you would say something like ‘I’m fighting wild tigers in Africa’). Then, the asking person had to go into the middle and pantomime whatever the last kid said they were doing.

The game could also be absolutely humiliating, depending on what the person in the middle gave you to do.

“What are you doing?” the kid next to him called out to the sallow-faced upperclassman in the middle of the circle of students. The upperclassman stopped half-heartedly pantomiming brushing his teeth and looked at the kid blankly.

“I’m eating a spider,” the upperclassman decided, finally, and slunk back over to the circle.

“That’s fucking gross, Patrick,” called a blonde girl from the other side of the stage.

“Language,” the drama teacher chided, shaking her head so that her brown ponytail swayed from side to side.

Eddie couldn’t fucking believe Bill had dragged him here. He’d rather die than pretend to eat a spider in front of a circle full of people that he didn’t know.

Still, the kid next to him was doing an admirable job, contorting his freckled face in all the right ways to convey disgust, trepidation, et-cetera…

Shit. He had been so wrapped up in his own anger, he’d forgotten that it was his turn.

“What are you doing?” he asked reluctantly.

The kid looked over at him through a pair of thick, ugly glasses, and Eddie shivered involuntarily. This freckled glasses wearer was familiar to him, somehow...did they have an elective together, maybe? Had they passed each other in the hall?

“Eds from English,” the kid leered, grinning lazily, “didn’t peg you for an actor, but I am _not_ complaining about seeing you--”

“Just take your turn, Richie,” the red-headed girl on Eddie’s other side said irritably. Eddie, for his part, was sure that his face was the same color as her hair. How the hell had this guy remembered his name? Eddie hadn’t even remembered that they were in the same English class.

“Calm your tits, Marsh.” Richie’s grin didn’t falter; if anything, it grew wider. “What am I doing? Well, Eddie Spaghetti, I am bending over to pick up a pencil, letting everyone else benefit from that sweeeeet shorts view.”

Eddie crossed his arms, furious. Was this kid making fun of him? He was one of the only kids in their grade that was openly gay (and even with that, he still wasn’t out to his mom, but that was a whole other story), so he was used to kids laughing at him, but they weren’t usually so up-front about it.

“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” the drama advisor assured.

“It’s fine.” He pushed into the center of the circle, ignoring glasses kid’s (Richie’s?) wolf whistle. “Except it’s definitely not my pencil that I dropped.” He turned around and made direct eye contact with Bill, trying to telepathically convey the fact that he was going to absolutely murder him for this. Bill seemed to get the message - he flinched and looked down, face white.

Sighing and steeling himself, Eddie did his best bend-and-snap. (Elle Woods just happened to be a personal role-model of his, so of course he had a working knowledge of all her tools and tricks.) Richie let out an actual cheer behind him, and as soon as he heard it, Eddie whipped around, holding up both of his middle fingers.

“The thing I actually dropped was my crushing hatred for you,” Eddie continued, glaring in a way that he hoped conveyed his point, “and here it is, I’ve found it.” 

Richie was somehow STILL undeterred. “Aw, Eds has passionate feelings for me--”

“What are you doing?” the red-headed girl asked exasperatedly.

“I’m killing Bill Denbrough,” Eddie said immediately, pointing to Bill across the circle. The girl grinned excitedly and took off, and Eddie watched in smug satisfaction as Bill was chased all around the stage for a solid two minutes. It wasn’t payback in full, but it was definitely funny as hell.

After the game ended, Eddie bolted off of the stage, hoping to be able to catch the late bus before it left. The drama workshop wasn’t over, but Eddie had done his duty to Bill, and that was really all that he was there to do. He wasn’t about to suffer through any more games - through any more _Richie._

A tall, regal looking upperclassman grabbed him before he could leave. “Hey. Come here.”

Eddie groaned internally and put on his best sorry smile. “You know, I appreciate it, but I just don’t think--”

“What did that kid call you? Eds?” The upperclassman still had a grip on his arm, and didn’t seem interested in letting go.

“I’m Eddie,” Eddie said sharply. “Not Eds, or whatever the fuck. Eddie.”

“Right.” The other boy nodded calculatingly. “Eddie. You don’t want to be here.”

Eddie paused, taken aback. “Yeah, not at all. My friend Bill dragged me.”

“The runner?”

“Yeah, with the blonde hair and dumb expression.” Eddie pointed up at the stage, where Bill was socializing with the red-haired girl. “What is this about?”

“I’m Stanley Uris, Stan for short,” the boy introduced himself, “and I didn’t want to be here, either. Mike dragged me to this workshop two years ago.”

“Mike?” Eddie racked his brain. “Is that the guy who did the mime in the box thing a couple of minutes ago?”

“Yep,” Stan sighed and shook his head. “You would have seen him in the play last year, if you went on the eighth grade trip. He sang the song about the boat at the end.”

“Oh, yeah.” Eddie nodded, vaguely remembering seeing Mike perform. “But...what does that have to do with anything?”

“Right. So, I got pulled aside on my first day here, too, because I had, and I quote, ‘a commanding presence, but absolutely no desire to make an idiot out of myself in front of others.’ Sound like anyone you know?”

“Eds, are you coming back?” Richie called from the stage.

“Not as long as you’re up there, asshole,” Eddie snapped back. “Okay, Stanley Uris, I know you’ve got a whole schtick for whatever it is you’re trying to sell, but can you please get to the point so that I can get away from this creep?”

Richie blew him a kiss, and he shuddered. Stan looked at him with barely concealed amusement.

“Freshman crushes are so cute.” With a quiet laugh, Stan stepped over to a nearby table. “Come look at this, Eddie. See if it’s more your speed.”

“I do not have a crush on that imbecile,” Eddie hissed, following Stan against his better judgement. He wanted to continue sulking, but his anger left him in the space of a breath when he saw Stan’s beautiful, organized notebook.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Stan flipped through a few pages, running his hands over one particularly detailed chart proudly. “I’m the stage manager.”

“What’s that?” Eddie asked, leaning in to get a better look at what Stan was touching.

“It’s basically like second in command, after the director,” Stan explained, pushing the notebook towards Eddie so he could have a better look. “I plan rehearsals, record blocking, keep track of these idiots.” He waved a hand towards the stage. “Actors are the worst, honestly. They need guidance.”

“And you want my help,” Eddie guessed, impressed in spite of himself.

“I’m looking for an assistant for the fall play,” Stan confirmed. “What do you think? You’d get to boss around whoever gets cast.”

Eddie looked back up at Richie and smiled for the first time since he’d entered the auditorium. “And it’ll count for my Freshman Academy extracurriculars project?”

“It will indeed.” Stan took his notebook back. “So?”

“Why the hell not,” Eddie agreed, wondering if he was going to regret this.

\----

He regretted it almost immediately.  
‘  
The fall play was a pretty exclusive thing - you had to be extremely talented to even be considered for it as an underclassman. It was easier that way, Stan explained, because then the people with less experience would have more time to go to workshops and improve before they auditioned for the winter play and musical.

This year, the drama advisor (Ms. Starrett) had cast only one freshman, much to the dismay of Eddie’s whole class...and much to Eddie’s personal dismay, that freshman was Richie.

“Looks like we’re gonna be spending a lot of time together, huh, Eds?” he’d grinned, sliding excitedly into the chair next to Eddie at the readthrough. “Stage managing suits you, I think. The little condescending frown really does it for me.”

Eddie stared at him. “What is your problem? It’s bad enough you moved to sit next to me in English, but now you’re gonna make fun of me here, too?”

“Who’s making fun of you?” Stan swept over, face stony.

“Holy shit,” Richie gulped. “Listen, uh, I really didn’t--”

Stan crowded Richie, leaning into his space. “I will only say this once, freshman. Leave. My. Crew. Alone. You got it?”

Richie nodded weakly. “Got it.”

“Good.” Stan stood back up. “Eddie, if he keeps bugging you, feel free to go for the nuts.”

Richie quietly crossed his legs.

“I will,” Eddie promised, handing Stan the attendance sheet. Stan nodded at it, seeming satisfied, and departed off in Mrs. Starrett’s direction.

“Why would I be making fun of you?” Richie asked softly once Stan was out of earshot.

Eddie pretended to count reasons on his fingers. “Oh, I dunno. I’m gay, I wear a fanny pack sometimes, I carried my inhaler in my front right pocket until the beginning of the seventh grade. My shorts are all too small because my mother still doesn’t know what size I am after almost fifteen years, and she won’t let me shop for myself. Pick your poison.”

“Oh.” Clearly, none of that had occurred to Richie. “Fanny packs are badass.”

“They’re good for carrying snacks,” Eddie agreed. _And pills_ , his brain reminded him...but it had been a long time since then. Hadn’t it?

“Anyway, Eds. I’m not trying to be mean.” Richie looked hard at him, serious behind his glasses. “I don’t care about any of the stuff you just said. I like you. Sorry if I came on too strong.”

“I guess I’m sorry too,” Eddie muttered, “for assuming.”

“Friends?” Richie asked, holding out his hand hopefully.

Eddie took it tentatively. “Eventually, I guess, yeah.”

And that was that, for the most part. Before Eddie knew it, Richie had become a regular part of his life - a familiar voice, a constant presence. All the drama kids were, in fact. Stan invited Eddie, Richie, Bev (the redheaded girl from the first day), and Bill to the drama lunch table around November (at that point, the fall play was over, and Bev and Bill had auditioned for and made the winter play), and they’d all taken tremendously well to one another ever since. It was actually kind of awesome - Eddie’s mother’s strictness had meant that he’d never had much by way of friends that weren’t Bill, so it was super cool to feel included by a whole group of people.

He actually really liked the stage managing aspect of the club, too. Like Stan, Eddie was partial to organization and order, and so proved adept at making sure that rehearsals ran smoothly and safely. Stan even let him give notes to the actors when tech week for the winter play came around, and he thought he did rather nicely. He managed to keep himself from harping too much on Richie, at any rate, which was an accomplishment in and of itself.

Richie still eluded him somewhat. The two of them had tried really hard on the friendship front, but something definitely continued to be…. _off_ between them. Every time Eddie looked at Richie, he felt itchy under his skin for reasons he couldn’t even hope to identify, and he was pretty sure that friends didn’t feel that way when they looked at their other friends. He wished he could get over himself and his stupid grudge and enjoy Richie the way that Bill and Bev seemed to, but no matter what he did, he found himself stuck in that itchy place again and again and again.

“You’re thinking too much, Spaghetti,” Richie had said during a musical rehearsal when he’d caught Eddie wondering about the itch under his skin. “I can feel you vibrating from all the way over here.”

“Your mom’s thinking too much,” Eddie retorted, embarrassed.

Richie grinned leeringly. “Wanna know what _your_ mom’s thinking about?”

Eddie groaned and flipped him off.

By the time the end of year drama awards came along, he couldn’t hold in his frustration anymore. He had to tell someone; to ask them how it could be that a person could hate someone without wanting to. So…

“Stan?” 

“Eddie?” Stan was adjusting his bowtie in a backstage mirror.

“Do you hate Richie?”

Stan turned around, a little bewildered. “I don’t hate Richie. He’s a little shit, but he’s got a good heart, and sometimes his jokes are okay. Why?”

“I don’t know why I hate Richie,” he said, trying to keep emotion out of his voice. “I don’t mean to.”

“Oh, Eddie.” Stan smoothed down an imaginary strand of hair on Eddie’s forehead. “You don’t hate Richie.”

“Yes, I do,” Eddie insisted, confused.

“No.” Stan sighed, looking down at Eddie sadly. “Look, I don’t want to tell you what you do or don’t feel. You’ve got to figure this one out by yourself. Come back and see me when you do.”

Eddie’s stomach flipped. “Is it gonna be bad, when I figure it out?”

“I don’t think so,” Stan said, “but let’s not think about that right now, okay? Let’s concentrate on the fact that we’re totally gonna win ‘Best Tech Crew For A Musical’.” 

They did win ‘Best Tech Crew For a Musical’. Eddie beamed onstage when he received it from Ms. Starrett, half because they’d won, and half because it was nice to have things for himself without his mother interfering or forcing him away. She hadn’t attended any of the shows as a form of protesting his involvement, and he’d found that he hadn’t missed her at all, not one bit.

Still, it was nice sometimes to have someone be there to celebrate your accomplishments with you. Eddie supposed his friends filled that void, kind of. After shaking Mrs. Starrett’s hand, he’d looked down at the audience excitedly, and Bill, Bev, and Mike were all whooping excitedly, genuine love and appreciation in their expressions. It was nice, so why did it still feel like something was missing? Was it selfish to want a person of his very own, there for him and only him?

It was at that point in his thought process that Eddie had spotted Richie in the audience.

Richie had grown a little over the course of their Freshman year. He was hardly the bug-eyed kid Eddie had flipped off at the first workshop; his hair was long and curling around his ears, his face was thinner and his cheekbones were more pronounced, and his limbs were long enough now that he barely fit in the tiny auditorium chairs. Eddie noticed all of that quietly, marveling in the amount of progress they’d both made over the course of the school year…

...and then he made eye contact with Richie - took in the soft, sweet smile on Richie’s face, so different from his usual cocky smirk, took in the squint of his eyes, the hand pressed to his cheek…

Eddie didn’t have to wait until later to understand what Stan wanted him to figure out. In that moment, he knew.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me I had a crush on Richie,” he hissed in Stan’s ear once the ceremony was finally over.

Stan gave him a withering look. “ _I_ was supposed to tell _you_ that?”

“I can’t come back,” Eddie continued, ignoring Stan’s dig, “Stan, I can’t keep doing this club if it means I have to be with Richie all the time...if it means that I have to sit with the knowledge of this fucking sin I’m committing--”

Sighing, Stan waved Eddie away. “You’ll be back next year. You love it.”

“No I don’t,” Eddie yelled, wishing that Stan thought his feelings were a bigger deal, “and you only like it because it gives you a place to come and suck face with your stupid boyfriend--”

Stan flipped him off behind his back and proceeded to go suck face with his stupid boyfriend. Mike, for his part, was thrilled about it. Eddie, not so much.

“Congratulations, Spaghetti.” Richie’s voice was unmistakable behind Eddie, and Eddie froze, not ready to turn around.

“You too,” he said, gritting his teeth and facing front, “Best Freshman, Rookie of the Year, that’s really--”

“Eh. Actors get all the credit.” Richie stepped around so that Eddie was forced to look at him. Eddie kept his eyes firmly on Richie’s (hideous white pleather) shoes. “Crew’s where the real shit goes down.”

“Not with Stan in charge,” Eddie mumbled, quietly pleased that Richie was acknowledging the crew’s work instead of bragging about his own stuff like he would have done at the beginning of the year.

“Don’t discount what you do, Eds. You’re really good at your job.” 

This was so unlike Richie, Eddie could almost scream. He looked up to find Richie staring at him intently, eyes huge behind his glasses.

“Who are you and what have you done with Richie Tozier?”

Richie’s smile was almost bashful.

“Oh, you know. Same old Dick,” he teased, tugging at one of his curls, “but I just wanted...you’re coming back next year, right?”

Fuck.

Eddie sighed, already defeated. “Yes.”

Richie’s smile immediately brightened. “Excellent. Dunno what I would do without my best friend Eds at rehearsal telling me to, and I quote, ‘stop fucking touching Mike Hanlon’s props’.”

“Don’t call me Eds,” he protested emptily.

“Best Friend it is, then.” Richie clapped him on the shoulder, and Eddie burned crimson at the touch. “I told you we’d be friends, remember? Back at the beginning.”

“You did,” Eddie said, subconsciously reaching up to touch the place on his shoulder where Richie’s hand had been.

“Richie Tozier’s right again,” Richie laughed, stepping back with a wave. “Can’t wait for next year, Spaghetti!”

Eddie Kaspbrak hated theatre. He hated it with his whole heart.

Well, no. He didn’t hate the friendships, or the cast dinners, or even the long weekend tech calls. He’d had a lot of fun over the past year, and it had been really good for his social life as well as his resume.

So...he didn’t _hate_ hate theatre. In fact, he kind of loved it. But he hated Richie Tozier (or more, he hated that he liked Richie Tozier), and that was enough, for the moment, to make him more than a little nervous for whatever next year would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if y'all are interested in this! 
> 
> if I were to continue, we would eventually add Benverly and it would probably get sexy after a bit.
> 
> again, get at me with your thoughts.
> 
> strictlyamess.tumblr.com (main)  
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com (writing)


	2. Sophomore Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Things will work out,” Ben continued, sweet and reassuring. “For both of us.”
> 
> “I hope you’re right, Ben,” Eddie sighed. “I’m going off headset now.”
> 
> “Fair enough,” Ben said. “Talk to you when Stan freaks out midway through the act one closer.”
> 
> “I can hear both of you,” Stan said flatly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're carrying on! welcome to sophomore year.  
> warning: this is a pretty serious sophomore slump for our boys. tread with caution.

Sure enough, as soon as Eddie got the e-mail about drama club starting up again, he marched over to his calendar and circled the date of the first workshop in red sharpie. He had been cooped up with his mother watching Jeopardy virtually all summer, and he was more than ready to see his friends again. Bi-weekly trips to the diner or the park were fun, but not enough.

He was so desperate for their company, he was almost ready to overlook the dread he felt at the thought of seeing Richie.

He’d been careful during the summer to only attend group hangouts that he knew Richie wouldn’t go to. The idea behind this was that not seeing Richie would help his crush subside before he went back to school, and that everything would subsequently go back to normal. Of course, Eddie’s life being how it was, things couldn’t be that simple. Absence was unfortunately only making the heart grow fonder, and Eddie found himself daydreaming about Richie during the moments that his mind wasn’t occupied with anything important...which was most moments, in the summertime.

Eddie’s last and only hope, then, was that Richie had miraculously either grown ugly or adjusted his personality severely over the last three months. It was a long shot, but barring that, Eddie was going to have to suck it up and deal with his feelings, so he held out hope for it.

Said hope was, of course, in vain.

“Spaghetti, thank God.” It was the first day of school, and too early in the morning for Eddie to be properly prepared to see Richie. God fucking damn it. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been asking after you all summer.”

Eddie looked at him, and immediately wished he hadn't. Richie had grown several inches since Eddie had last seen him, and his freckles had gone dark from the summer sun. He was wearing a tye-dyed Ben and Jerry’s t-shirt, his hair was pulled back in a sloppy, low ponytail, and there were a few bristly hairs around his upper lip and chin. His glasses were, somehow, thicker than ever. The combination of all of those things should have been absolutely horrifying, but for whatever reason, Richie’s new eyesore status was making Eddie’s heart do jumping jacks. What the hell.

“Take a hint, asshole,” he said, biting his lip and going back to hanging up flyers for the first drama workshop.

“You can’t escape me that easily, Eds.” Richie cornered him, putting his hands on either side of the wall around Eddie so that he was trapped. Eddie clenched his fists and looked at the floor, trying to pretend that he wasn’t affected by their new position. “I thought we were friends. I missed you.”

“You’ll see me,” Eddie muttered, waving the flyers in his hand for emphasis. “I know you’re going.”

“Of course,” Richie grinned, still boxing him in with his arms. “And probably in English, and maybe some other classes, too. Es muy emocionante, si?”

“I don’t take Spanish,” Eddie said, frowning.

“Exciting,” Richie explained. “Eeez veddy exciting, Señor Spaghetti.”

“Go to class, nerd.” Eddie could feel a blush creeping up his neck. If he spent any more time with Richie, his whole face would be red, and he absolutely could not have Richie see that. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

“It’s a date,” Richie winked and pulled himself away from the wall, moving to adjust his backpack. “Nice tan, by the way. Brings out your scowl.”

“See, I went out and got the tan to emphasize this, so...” Eddie held out his middle finger threateningly, but Richie was already walking away.

Fuck. Eddie had expected things to be awkward, but that was a whole new level of emotional badness.

Maybe his ticket to getting out of this whole feelings nonsense was to push Richie away. He was going to have to step it up with the insults.

\----

Insults worked, but only kind of.

The first workshop was much like Eddie had remembered it being the year before, only this time he didn’t have to participate. Instead, he sat smugly with Stan on the sidelines. 

Richie was in rare form; he was obviously trying to show off for the freshmen, and he kept glancing back at Eddie excitedly. Eddie returned his excitement with scowls and rude gestures, trying to keep the butterflies in his stomach at bay.

“I take it you haven’t discussed your feelings,” Stan said, watching Eddie disapprovingly.

“What feelings?” Eddie lied, tightening his shoulders. “I don’t have those anymore.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Stan turned in his chair a little bit so that Eddie could better see the exasperated expression on his face. “It’s not healthy to bottle your feelings up. You’ll explode.”

“What feelings?” Eddie asked again, wishing that Stan weren’t so goddamn observant.

Stan watched him for another minute, and then turned back to the stage. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Hey Eds!” Richie was waving at him from the stage. “This is a partner game that requires a lot of touching. Wanna team up?”

“If I was actually an artist and you were the clay I was supposed to sculpt with, I would change professions,” Eddie snapped.

Richie looked back at him blankly. “So...no?”

“Leave me alone, Richie,” Eddie all but yelled, sliding down in his chair.

That seemed to sting more for Richie than the insult. He went back to the group of acting hopefuls, shoulders a little more slumped than they were before.

“And now you’ve embarrassed him.” Stan rolled his eyes. “Very nice, Eddie. Great rapport with the actors.”

“Everyone else likes me just fine,” Eddie muttered. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You better,” Stan warned. “My job is yours next year, and I don’t want to find out that I chose the wrong fucking kid to mentor.”

“You didn’t,” Eddie said stubbornly. “It’ll be good.”

It wasn’t as good as he imagined it would be.

Because tactically avoiding Richie seemed to work better than insulting him outright, Eddie tried his best to steer clear of his bespectacled crush for the first month and a half of school. He could tell that Richie was pretty hurt by his behavior, but Eddie figured he’d get over it after a while and move on to annoying someone else...so that was fine.

What was less fine was the fact that his rift with Richie was affecting their friend group. Bev and Bill didn’t really understand what was going on, but felt a little bit like they were being forced to take sides...and so instead of doing that, they chose to isolate themselves, becoming closer to each other and spending less time with the other members of the drama club. Richie didn’t really know what to do, and so was apparently biding his time with upperclassmen, and Eddie...Eddie was alone, which really pissed him off. The whole point of getting over his crush was to not ruin the friendships he’d made last year, damn it - and not only was this process actively tearing those friendships apart, but he still couldn’t shake the fucking crush. Un-fucking-fair.

Stan was the person that paid him the most attention on any given day, but Eddie knew that he was disappointed in him, too. Stage managers were supposed to be building trust with the actors, and Eddie was effectively doing the opposite of that. Letting Stan down hurt just as much if not more than losing friends, and by mid-October, when the fall play was going into tech, he was considering quitting the drama club, just so he could escape the scrutinizing gaze of Stanley Uris.

That was when Stan gave him The Assignment.

Stage management was technically not supposed to do stage crew work; they had enough responsibility in making sure that the actors, the lights, and the microphones were all doing what they were supposed to. This show was meant to be no different...except that there weren’t really enough crew members to cover all of the menial things like prop resetting. Stan really had no choice but to give Eddie a task.

“Eddie,” Stan came up to Eddie and pointed to a place in his heavily annotated script. It was about halfway through the first Saturday of tech weekend, and the entire crew was stressed beyond belief. “You’re not supervising anything during this stretch of Act One, so I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?” Eddie asked, pulling out his own script to make a note.

“Richie has a quick change here that he can’t make by himself.” Stan indicated a specific line on the page. “I need you to help him.”

Eddie felt like Stan had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. “Me? It has to be me?”

“It has to be you,” Stan confirmed. “There’s a scene switch there, too. I need the rest of my crew on stage.”

“I--” Eddie started to protest, but Stan held up a finger.

“I don’t care about your self-destructive feelings, Eddie. I care about the show. Get over it.”

Eddie swallowed, nodded, and tried in vain to silence his singing nerves.

An hour later, Richie sprinted offstage to change costumes, and all of Eddie’s “progress” in getting rid of his crush was undone.

“Eds?” Richie asked, confused and out of breath. “What--”

“You need a dresser for this, dumbass.” Eddie flushed and held out a pair of pants, already unbuttoned and ready for Richie to step into. “Strip.”

“Well, shit.” All the bravado seemed to drain from Richie’s face. He stared at Eddie, seemingly frozen to the spot. “Uh.”

“Now,” Eddie hissed, brandishing the pants again.

“Right, okay.” Richie made quick work of his suit jacket and pants, and was left in his boxers and a collared shirt. He started in on the buttons, which gave Eddie a couple of seconds to take in the sight of Richie before him, semi-undressed.

It fucking sucked to be fifteen and hormonal. Eddie was grateful for the dark as he discreetly reached down to adjust himself in his jeans.

Fortunately, Richie didn’t seem to notice. He got the shirt off, and stepped towards Eddie cautiously. “Uh.”

Shit. They were already almost out of time. “Okay, that took too long, I’m gonna have to help you with it next time.” Eddie shivered at the thought. “Now, pants.”

Richie folded his hands over his almost naked body, seemingly...embarrassed? “As much as I wish I were that tall, Eds, you’re, uh….gonna have to kneel down for this.”

Fuck.

Quickly, Eddie sank to his knees, holding out the pants and trying desperately to think of anything but his proximity to Richie’s crotch. Richie all but leapt into them, apparently also hoping to get the moment over with as soon as he possibly could. He reached his hands down to get the button, but Eddie swatted him away. “Put your shirt on instead. I got it.”

“You really don’t have to,” Richie said quickly, voice cracking a little on the last word.

“It’s fine.” Richie’s aversion to Eddie’s hands around that area soon became apparent; to Eddie’s surprise, Richie was noticeably half-hard himself. It wasn’t weird, though - in fact, it was kind of a relief to see that he wasn’t the only horny idiot around. Eddie chalked it up to puberty, and used his deft hands to do up the button and zipper swiftly and neatly.

“Fine?” Richie asked warily, with his t-shirt half over his head.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Eddie stood up and helped him pull the shirt down. They didn’t have to talk about it. There was nothing to say.

“No reason.” Richie took half a second to look at him curiously, and then turned to the stage. “Gotta blast.”

“Break a leg,” Eddie whispered after him, watching fondly as Richie’s face lit back up as soon as he was under the stage lights.

He’d been an idiot, hadn’t he?

He could live with keeping his stupid crush to himself if it meant that he could have his friends - have _Richie_.

Why did it take being inches from Richie’s dick to bring him to that stupid conclusion? Christ, being fifteen was the fucking worst.

The rest of the week saw things veering closer and closer to normal. Richie realized after about two days that Eddie wasn’t flinching away anymore (from his boner or otherwise) and slowly but surely, their banter resurfaced, as well as Richie’s flirting and casual touches. This drew Bev and Bill back in, and by the time the show rolled around, the group of them were sitting together after rehearsal again, trading jokes and insults like nothing had happened.

Most friends wouldn’t be so forgiving, Eddie knew. He was lucky.

Stan told him as much before the first curtain. “I see you took your head out of your ass, Kaspbrak.”

Eddie nodded, sliding his headset off of his ears and around his neck. “I was being a moron. But you know that.”

“I do.” Stan adjusted a newspaper on the prop table. “That’s why I gave you the task of changing Richie’s pants.”

Eddie groaned. “Stan, that’s hazing.”

“No, it’s strategic.” Stan was having trouble hiding his smile. “And nobody else around here has as much of a vested interest in Richie’s penis as you, so it made sense.”

Eddie pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up and over his head in horror. “Stop talking, oh my god.”

Stan smiled, satisfied that the prop table was in order, and turned to Eddie. “I don’t care about your terrible taste in men, Eddie. I’m just glad you got your priorities sorted.”

“Did you ever have to dress Mike?” Eddie asked, changing the subject.

Stan scoffed as he exited towards the dressing rooms. “Have to? I volunteered, every time. Eventually he got the hint.” He paused before he left, looking back at Eddie. “It’s a legitimate strategy. Just a thought.”

“I’m done with pants duty after Saturday,” Eddie said hotly. “Mike probably didn’t subject you to Smurf pattern underwear.”

Stan didn’t stop laughing until he was all the way down the hall. Eddie listened to it echo, and felt warm. 

He did end up volunteering to dress Richie for both the winter play and the musical, to Stan’s great amusement. It was less and less awkward for Eddie with every show, but Richie never really stopped being flustered about it - and for whatever reason, he’d become increasingly flustered around Eddie in general as the months went by. It was so out of character for him that for the musical, Bill and Bev came around to watch the ritual clothes change.

“Having fun, Rich?” Bev called, leaning on the prop table in amusement as Eddie tugged Richie’s belt through the belt loops of his jeans. “Haven’t you had this exact same fantasy the last few times you went into the bathroom to--”

“Shove it, Marsh.” Richie gritted his teeth. “You and Denbrough get up to kinkier shit, I’m sure.”

Bill wrinkled his nose. “Is that what you thuh-think about when you’re jacking it, Rich?”

“Your stutter’s getting better,” Richie commented, ignoring Bill’s remark.

Bill and Bev had announced in January that they were dating. Nobody was surprised; they’d spent virtually all fall together in an attempt to ride out the wave of Richie and Eddie’s rough patch. They were sort of a strange couple, though, in that they didn’t really have anything in common - they just sort of drifted together, connecting but not really connecting. Eddie imagined they’d be finished by the time the drama awards came around.

“I’ve had some help,” said Bill, giving Bev a small smile.

“Richie!” April, the junior girl Richie was playing opposite (they were the B-plot romance, which was pretty impressive, given that Richie was only a sophomore) ran over, clearly frazzled. “They’re like, three lines away from our cue.”

“Gimme my hat, gimme my hat!” Richie grabbed for the ridiculous straw cowboy hat in a hurry, abnormally eager to escape his friends. Eddie watched him, concerned.

“Richie?”

“C’mon, April!” Richie said, ignoring Eddie and taking April’s hand to pull her over and around to the back entrance of the set.

Eddie looked back over at Bill and Ben. “Was that weird?”

Bev shrugged. “Kinda. But she and Richie are close now, or whatever. They’ve been spending all kinds of time together.”

Eddie had noticed that, too, and it didn’t make him very happy. Bev bringing it up was really just the cherry on his paranoia sundae, and it led him to check in with a third, more honest source.

“Yeah, something’s up with Richie.” Mike Hanlon’s character had a break during the ballet in act two, and so Eddie was able to catch up with him quickly and easily. “He’s been like...agitated...since whatever happened between you guys in the fall.”

“Is he mad at me?” Eddie asked, trusting Mike to tell him the truth.

“He might be,” Mike admitted, adjusting his plaid costume shirt. “I don’t think he realizes if he is, though.”

Eddie sighed miserably. “I’m not ignoring him this time, though. I’m even trying to be nice.”

“Yeah, well.” Mike looked up at Eddie, shrugging. “That might be the issue, actually.”

“What does that mean?” Stan was saying something to Ben Hanscom, the new lights guy, over the headset. Eddie willed himself to ignore it.

“I don’t think Richie ever expected you to flirt back,” Mike said softly, “and he’s probably kind of scared of it, you know?”

Eddie didn’t understand, and told Mike as much.

“Well,” Mike tried, “fantasy and reality are really different, right? Like, when I had a crush on Stan, I was totally freaked when Stan started showing interest, because it was just...my mind hadn’t actually let me think that positively about it. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not the type to run from stuff, though. Richie...I don’t know.”

“What about April?” Eddie asked, wringing his hands.

“I don’t know about April,” Mike admitted. “She likes him, that’s obvious, but I can’t read Richie well enough to say.”

“Eddie,” Stan’s voice yelled through the headset, “stop flirting with my boyfriend backstage and get to your goddamn station.”

“Fuck you too, Stan,” Eddie called, rolling his eyes. “Thanks, Mike. Sorry to drag you into all this.”

Mike smiled, and Eddie fleetingly wished he had fallen for somebody with the kind of gentle countenance Mike had. “Happy to help, Eddie. Come back anytime.”

“Eddie!” Stan yelled, and Eddie hightailed it backstage.

He spent the next week trying to dial back his kindness to Richie, but it seemed the damage was done. Richie was barely interacting with him at all; instead, he was spending most all of his free time with April. Any suspicions Eddie had before were well on their way to being confirmed.

“Why her?” he asked himself quietly during the first night of the show, watching the two of them onstage and feeling a little bit like throwing up.

“You know your headset’s on, right?” Ben Hanscom called. Eddie groaned, mortified.

“No. Sorry, Ben.”

“It’s okay,” Ben said softly. “I know how you feel.”

That was new. Eddie hadn’t paid Ben much mind over the course of the last year (which he felt bad about, but it was hard to pay attention to anyone but Richie most of the time), but from what he had seen, he hadn’t picked up on Ben having a crush.

“Things will work out,” Ben continued, sweet and reassuring. “For both of us.”

“I hope you’re right, Ben,” Eddie sighed. “I’m going off headset now.”

“Fair enough,” Ben said. “Talk to you when Stan freaks out midway through the act one closer.”

“I can hear both of you,” Stan said flatly.

“Bye,” Eddie said, switching off his headset and returning to wallowing alone in his feelings.

When the end of year awards rolled around, Eddie hadn’t talked to Richie in three weeks, and it hadn’t been his prerogative. Richie hadn’t been talking to anyone but April. Needless to say, his feelings were hurt, and watching Richie win award after award after award wasn’t helping. Stan was really the only thing keeping him grounded - and this was Stan’s last night in the program. He was a graduating senior, and that fucking hurt, too.

“I’m sorry,” Stan whispered, after the ceremony concluded and all of the awards were passed out. Eddie had won a fair amount of them himself, but he still felt shitty, and Stan’s leaving was pushing him over the edge a little bit.

“Don’t be,” Eddie whispered back, pulling him into a hug. “Thanks for everything, Stan.”

“You make it sound like we won’t see each other over the summer,” Stan mumbled, voice uncharacteristically shaky.

“Also, I have your number,” Eddie said, blinking back tears, “so really, you’re never getting rid of me.”

Stan pulled back and looked seriously at him. “You’re coming back to this next year, right?”

Eddie didn’t have to ask why Stan was asking. He could see Richie and April laughing together in his peripheral vision.

“I’m not gonna like it,” Eddie said honestly, “but I promise you that you didn’t waste your time with me.”

Stan smiled, eyes watery. “I know I didn’t.”

“Go suck face with your stupid boyfriend,” Eddie smiled back weakly, patting Stan on the arm.

“I will.” Slowly, Stan turned on his heel and departed in search of Mike. Eddie watched him leave, feeling heavy with the knowledge that a chapter of his life was ending. Things wouldn’t be the same without Stan and Mike.

“Eddie?” Eddie heard Bill and Bev walking up behind him. He turned to find that they had their coats on, and were looking at him piteously, for whatever reason. Ben Hanscom was also with them; he was not looking at Eddie, though, preoccupied instead by staring wistfully at Bev.

Oh. Oh, oh, oh.

“Let’s go get pizza,” Bev suggested softly, taking Bill’s hand. Ben looked away sharply.

“Why?” Eddie looked back at the three of them, suspicious. “Why are you being so--”

They stared at the ground, uncomfortable, and Eddie’s heart sank. He turned around.

Richie and April were tucked away in a corner of the auditorium lobby...and they were kissing.

“Yeah,” Eddie said softly, unable to tear his eyes away from them, “pizza sounds good.”

“Let’s go,” Bill suggested, guiding Eddie towards the doors. Bev came around his other side to wrap an arm around Eddie’s waist, and Ben followed the three of them out.

It was a good thing he had such good friends, Eddie figured, because there was no way he was going to survive junior year otherwise.

Theatre was great, except when it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :(
> 
> bonus points if you can guess the musical.
> 
> come be sad with me in the comments, or try me at:  
> strictlyamess.tumblr.com (main)  
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com (writing)


	3. Junior Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bev looked pointedly between Eddie and Richie. “Make it happen soon, okay? For all of our sakes.”
> 
> “What the fuck,” Eddie said flatly, “are you talking about.”
> 
> She kissed him on the cheek in response. “You dumb, oblivious nerd. Have a good show.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a little carried away here...but in a good way I think! Either way, let me know.

As if Eddie’s life weren’t shitty enough, Sonia Kaspbrak chose the summer before junior year to kick her campaign to get Eddie back on his meds into full gear.

“You’ve just seemed so pale, lately,” she said, running her fingers along the edge of an empty weekly pill container and frowning. She stopped on the piece of the container marked ‘Saturday’, opened it, and held it out to Eddie in a way that she probably thought he would find inviting.

“I’m fine, mama. Not sick. Let me go upstairs.” Eddie wasn’t old enough to negotiate, but he wasn’t young or weak enough to plead, so he was stuck in no-man’s land for fighting back, relatively speaking.

“Your breathing--”

“Don’t have asthma. Don’t have any of it. I’ll be in my room.” Eddie stomped up the steps, rushed into his room, and slammed the door. What had he done that warranted this sudden need for her to control him again?

Just one thing, it turned out, but that one thing was plenty.

On a muggy day in early August, Eddie came downstairs to find two objects of note. One was a post-it that Sonia had left him on the counter saying that she was on a day trip to Ogunquit with the other women in her church knitting group. The other was a picture of him and Richie from right after last year’s fall show. It was by the arm of Sonia’s chair that was closest to the wall, so she’d obviously been strategically waiting to show him she had it. In the photo, Richie was pressing a wet, disgusting kiss to the side of Eddie’s head (practically his ear), and Eddie was trying and failing to keep everyone from knowing that he was the happiest kid at the whole post-show pizza excursion.

Upon seeing that she had that picture, Eddie’s brain effectively short-circuited.

She _knew_.

From then on, he almost forgot about his anguish over Richie in an attempt to stay out of the way of his mother. Every time she moved to talk to him, he would dodge, dashing out to stay with Ben, Bill, or Bev, or meeting Stan and Mike for coffee. His evasion strategies were good, but limited, and so by the time it was time for school to be back in session, he was almost grateful for the respite from Sonia. School meant that he could spend less time worrying about when she was going to drop the anvil.

Of course, his excitement about school ended the moment he saw Richie walk through the front doors of Derry High, with April orbiting him like a satellite.

Eddie could honestly have killed him.

First, Richie’s outfit was even more hideous than usual. He was wearing a disgustingly green Tommy Bahama atrocity over a light purple Bar Harbor t-shirt that said _‘The Finest Catch’_ in gross loopy cursive. His jeans were ripped to shit, and his Converse had holes. He looked like he’d been sleeping outside for the past week and hadn’t even bothered to roll up to the local YMCA for a shower.

Second, he was still OUTRAGEOUSLY attractive. His face had thinned a little over the summer, and his jaw was more pronounced, and holy shit did that make a world of difference. He was actually kind of nice to look at, now. Granted, the rest of his body was still a gangly explosion of limbs, but his face almost made up for it. Almost.

Third...third was April, which Eddie knew wasn’t fair. He didn’t know her well, and from what he’d seen, she seemed relatively decent. He just hated the way that she watched Richie, hated the fact that Richie watched her back, hated her blonde hair and pale skin and how opposite she was from Eddie, hated that she and Richie had probably spent the whole summer laughing and hanging out ( _and fucking_ , Eddie’s mind screamed) while Eddie was locked in the prison of Sonia Kaspbrak’s house.

He’d only been in school for approximately seven minutes, but in that moment, Eddie turned on his heel and walked back outside. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for any of it.

He especially wasn’t ready for drama workshops to begin.

“Eddie, put your phone away,” Ms. Starrett chided, nudging him as she watched the actors parade through the usual series of dumb improv exercises.

“I’m texting Stan,” he said, trying to appeal to her soft spot for his old mentor.

She smiled, but remained firm. “If you have it out, the actors will want to be able to have theirs, too. Put it on the table.”

Internalizing a groan, Eddie got up and moved to put his phone on Ms. Starrett’s designated phone table - but not without shooting off one last text.

**-He hasn’t even looked at me. I’m about ready to zip zap zop the fuck out of here.-**

When he came back, Ms. Starrett was looking at him curiously. That was never a good sign. He swallowed hard, and tried his best to look sweet.

“Yes?”

“I was just thinking…” she began, tapping her pencil against her chin thoughtfully, “that it might be good to have you join in on this next game? I know you’ll need an assistant this year, and if no one’s standing out so far…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Eddie held up his hands. “I can find someone from here. No need to throw me into the action.”

“Just play this next game, Eddie.” She gestured to the stage. “It’ll be good for the actors to see you up there. It’s not improv; it’s just a little bit of seat switching. No big deal.”

Richie cheered for some unrelated thing in the distance, and Eddie squeezed his eyes shut. No big deal. Right.

“Fine,” he managed, forcing his legs to move him over and up to join the actors.

“All right,” Ms. Starrett called, clapping her hands. “Excellent concentration, Bill, well done - and good job to you, sweetheart, for making it so far. What’s your name?”

A girl with long, reddish brown hair giggled. She’d apparently come second to Bill in the most recent round of Zip Zap Zop. “I’m Audra.”

“Audra. Well done.” Ms. Starrett beamed. “Now, for our next game, we’ve got one new player - and pay attention, new actors, because this man is crucial to our operation. His name is Eddie Kaspbrak, and he’s our Stage Manager. Returning folk, isn’t Eddie wonderful?”

There was a hum of assent. Eddie didn’t look up to see if Richie was nodding; he figured it was safe to assume that he wasn’t.

“The game,” Ms. Starrett continued, “is called ‘Can I Have Your Seat’, and it’ll require you all to grab chairs from backstage, so please go do so - except Eddie, who’s going to stay here.

Eddie felt the blood drain from his face. Of all of the games she could have chosen for him to play, she had to pick the one most likely to mess him up enough for Sonia to notice.

“Ms. Starrett, are you really sure--”

“Suck it up, Eddie,” she said, dropping the ‘nice teacher’ charade. “You need to engage, and this is how we’re going to do it.”

“Fuck,” Eddie mumbled under his breath, watching in quiet horror as everyone came back and made a circle of chairs around him.

“Okay.” Ms. Starrett clapped her hands again, picking back up with ‘nice teacher’. “The rules of this game are simple: if you make eye contact with someone else that is sitting down, you have to switch seats with them. The goal is to switch as much as possible. The catch,” and she paused to emphasize the word _‘catch’_ , “is that Eddie here is going to be trying to get a seat as well, and any empty seats are fair game for him. He’ll go around the circle asking ‘Can I have your seat?’” With that, she gestured for Eddie to do what she’d said. Sighing, he shuffled half-heartedly towards Bev.

“Can I have your seat?” he asked dejectedly.

She smiled sweetly. “No.”

He made to move to the next chair, assuming it was Bill (because Bill and Bev were still going strong, somehow - love didn’t make any fucking sense)...but it wasn’t; it was surly senior Victor Criss. Bewildered, he looked around for Bill, and found him on the other side of the circle, sitting next to freshman Audra.

Huh.

“And he’ll continue,” Ms. Starrett said, prompting, “until two of you switch, at which point he will make a run for the closest available seat. If he gets it, whoever’s lost their seat will be in the middle. Any questions?”

If the freshmen had any, they were too scared to ask.

“Let’s do this, then,” Ms. Starrett cheered, leaving the stage. Eddie looked blankly at Victor Criss.

“Can I have your seat?”

Behind him, there was a shuffle of feet - April and Audra were switching - and he felt a combination of adrenaline and vindictiveness kick in. He bolted for the seat that April was going for, all but shoving her out of the way to get it...and get it he did. He slid in triumphantly, smiling smugly up at her when she approached.

“You little gay bitch,” she muttered, rolling her eyes, and Eddie clenched his fists.

“Excuse me?”

“Just play the game,” Ms. Starrett called exasperatedly. Eddie had a feeling that this was the exact reason she’d shuffled him in - because she knew that there was drama, and she wanted to fix it. _Well, fat chance, Ms. Starrett_ , he thought, because it was fucking ON.

From then on, Eddie and April were as aggressive with each other as they could manage without getting in trouble. It wasn’t super obvious to anyone who didn’t know them, but the people who did were clearly uncomfortable as the game started to pick up.

It came to a head when, after a few minutes, Richie wound up in the middle.

“Monsieur Billiam,” Richie said, swaggering up to Bill with the worst French accent and affect that Eddie had ever heard, “can I hehv youeeer--”

Eddie looked around the circle, desperate for his eyes to be anywhere but on Richie - and locked gazes with greasy Patrick Hocksetter, all the way across the circle.

Fuck.

He bolted, trying his best to make as little noise as possible, but Richie seemed to be on his same wavelength. Eddie could almost see how it was going to play out in slow motion - him, diving into the chair, Richie, diving after him and ending up basically in his lap…

It was almost enough to make Eddie reconsider his mad scramble. Almost.

He picked up his pace, trying desperately to get there in enough time that Richie wouldn’t have to come anywhere near him, but when he got close enough to be able to touch the students on the outside of the circle, a leg popped out of nowhere, and he went sprawling, banging his head on the chair.

He sat up, head ringing, and saw April and Richie looking back at him. April looked self-satisfied; Richie looked horrified.

“Oh my fuck, Eds, are you - ?” Richie fell to his knees, taking Eddie’s head in his hands. “You’re bleeding. Ms. Starrett, he’s bleeding!”

“I’m fine,” Eddie insisted, pushing back from Richie and covering his (apparently bleeding) nose. “Time for a new game, I think.”

“Agreed,” Ms. Starrett said, rushing up on to the stage. “Criss, Hocksetter, set things up for 5 Minute Movie. Eddie, you good?”

“Gimme a sec,” Eddie mumbled, getting up slowly. “Bathroom.”

She nodded. “Go. We’re all set. Thank you for playing.”

Eddie made to leave, but couldn’t help but look at Richie one more time before he departed for the bathroom. Richie was looking back, sadness in his eyes and confusion in the furrows of his brow...and then April tugged on his arm, and he looked away.

Eddie decided in that moment that it was time to be active about getting over Richie, once and for all.

At the end of the workshop, after the blood had ceased and the freshmen were thoroughly frightened, Eddie dashed for his phone and texted Stan, who had returned his earlier text with condolences and a desire to know how the workshop was going.

**-Workshop was fine. I’m wondering, though - have you met anyone over there that you think I would like?-**

Stan replied back lightning fast.

**-I thought you’d never ask. I’m visiting Columbus Day Weekend. Want me to bring my friend Jonathan? I think you’ll hit it off.-**

Eddie looked back at Richie, who was silently packing his bag as April whispered in his ear, and typed a response.

**-I’d love that. See you soon.-**

When he got home, Sonia took one look at his scuffed khakis and lunged for the phone, shrieking about 911.

Eddie tore the phone off of the wall and marched with it up to his room, ignoring Sonia’s loud sobs and the burn of emotion in his own stomach.

\----

Jonathan, for his part, was pretty okay.

Stan had invited a selection of underclassmen to his house on the Saturday of the long weekend so that he and Mike could catch up on all of the theatre drama. Ever true to his word, Stan had also brought a couple of his college friends with him from Boston, and so Eddie found himself being shoved into a tall, broad stranger almost immediately after walking into the party.

“This is Jonathan,” Stan said, red cheeks betraying a little bit of a buzz. “Jonathan, Eddie. Adieu.”

“Um, hi, nice to see you, Stan,” Eddie said incredulously, but Stan was already lost in the throng of excited teens.

“Eddie?” Eddie looked back at Jonathan to find him staring down, brown eyes searching over Eddie’s face. “Hey. Stan told me a lot about you.”

“That’s...not good,” Eddie said, staring back. Jonathan was sweet looking - his whole complexion was dark, unlike Richie, whose ghostly pale face stood in stark contrast to the blackness of his hair and eyes. He was broader in the shoulders and chest than Richie, and obviously more muscular. His hair was neat where Richie’s was wild, and his clothes were nicely pressed where Richie’s were, for lack of a better word, filthy.

In short, he was definitely...not Richie.

Eddie’s kneejerk reaction was to not like the differences. He immediately kicked himself for that, though - he was meant to be getting over Richie, not staying stuck in his old crush feelings.

“No...it is, Stan likes you a lot,” Jonathan said, soft and shy. “And you’re even cuter than he said.”

Eddie felt his ears grow hot. “Oh. Um. You’re not so bad yourself.”

Jonathan smiled ( _too thin too clipped not wide enough **not Richie**_ ) and held out a hand to Eddie. “Wanna get a drink?”

Eddie heard Richie’s laugh ring out through the house, and let out a shuddering breath. He hadn’t thought he’d be there - he knew Stan and Richie were friends, but had assumed that Stan would prioritize Eddie’s heartbreak over Richie’s presence. Apparently, Stan was trying to be less exclusive than Eddie had hoped he’d be.

“Sure,” he said, finally, taking Jonathan’s hand. “I’d like that.”

When he walked into the kitchen, Richie was front and center, downing a cup of…. _something_ , and laughing uproariously with Mike.

“Shit, really, Mikey? A-cappella? That’s fucking nuts, my dude, my man, my…”

He spotted Eddie midway through his sentence, and stopped abruptly. Eddie realized a second too late that he was holding Jonathan’s hand.

“Heyyy, Stanny. Direct a guy to your little boy’s room, maybe?” Richie tore his gaze from Eddie and went searching for Stan.

“Upstairs and to the left,” called Stan, entering the room from the hallway, “and never call it that again.”

“Many thanks,” Richie said quickly, slipping out before Eddie had registered what was happening.

Jonathan watched him go, amused. “Who the hell is that guy? Are all theatre kids that wacky?”

Eddie sighed, dropping Jonathan’s hand and pushing his hands through his hair. “Fortunately, Richie’s one in a million.”

Eddie returned home with Jonathan’s number and a numb feeling in his chest. The next week at school, Richie didn’t look at him once.

\----

They continued that way, for a while.

Eddie’s relationship with Jonathan upgraded to _‘boyfriends...kinda’_. They hadn’t met in person very much, given that Jonathan lived in Massachusetts, but they texted pretty consistently, and had settled upon a sort of mutual romantic exclusivity. Eddie didn’t really know how he felt about that. On the one hand, Jonathan was warm, stable, and consistent. On the other...well, he wasn’t exactly feeling passionate feelings for the guy.

Then again, Eddie was pretty spoiled as far as passionate feelings were concerned, so maybe this was just normalcy.

At any rate, he wasn’t shy about talking about it. The damage had been done with Richie, so Eddie allowed for Jonathan to be a popular topic of conversation at rehearsal, the lunch table, and so forth. Bill was especially enthused about it, and would talk with him at length about romance. Audra would usually get roped into those lofty conversations, too. (Bill had invited her immediately after the first workshop, much to the chagrin of pretty much everyone. Audra was nice, but she didn’t understand the power of the Eddie, Bill, Bev, Ben, and Richie dynamic, and so stuck out among them like a sore thumb. Based on her shitty assimilation, Eddie had decided against inviting his new little apprentice Eddie Corcoran to the table.) Bev and Ben would join in sometimes, but mostly they just sent him sad, knowing looks from their side of the table.

(They were spending a lot more time together these days, too. If he didn’t know better, Eddie would have definitely guessed wrong if asked which of the two non-Richie lunch table boys Bev was in a relationship with.)

Richie, apparently, didn’t want to hear any of what Eddie had to say. He sat at the opposite side of the lunch table with April, now. Eddie couldn’t be too mad about it, given that he was in a quasi-relationship...but also because Richie was clearly feeling less and less good about April as time passed. Eddie suspected that her behavior during the first workshop had opened Richie’s eyes to a side of her he didn’t really like, and he’d slipped easily from there into a kind of resentment, or annoyance, or whatever. Still, they remained together, and that made it all but impossible for Eddie to even talk to Richie for almost the whole first semester of school. Between the weird, hurt looks that Richie would shoot him sometimes and April’s guard-dog defensiveness, Eddie figured it was easier just to steer clear.

He missed him, though. Eddie missed Richie with every fiber of his being...and it wasn’t just the crush shit, either. It was the friendship - the banter, the nicknames, the bitching about other drama club people together. They hadn’t had any of that since last spring, when Richie had started acting weird, and Eddie was positively starved for it. After midterms, he promised himself, he’d go up to Richie and make him talk about it. After midterms, they’d fix everything.

Eddie was right about that, but the circumstances of the whole thing turned out to be...not ideal.

Bev’s character had about a zillion costume changes for the winter show, so she was switching in and out of dresses all the time. It was only a matter of time, of course, before one of the dresses tore, and on the Monday of tech week, her most floaty evening gown caught on the closet door handle and ripped all the way down to the hem. She’d gone up to the costume closet after rehearsal to dig around for a needle and thread (Bev had proven herself a real whiz with sewing stuff).....and had caught Bill and Audra there, wrapped up in each other. Audra’s shirt was halfway unbuttoned, and Bill had his face buried in the crook of her neck.

Suffice it to say, Bill and Bev were no longer in a relationship.

Ben was absolutely furious with Bill, to the point where he wouldn’t even acknowledge his presence at lunch anymore, which left Richie and Eddie in kind of a lurch. They were both mad at Bill, too, of course. They all loved Bev and didn’t want to see her hurt. That said, Bill and Richie had grown pretty close over the past two years, and Eddie had known and loved Bill since elementary school, so it really fell to them to talk to Bill and figure out how to mend the group dynamic.

Unfortunately, that was going to have to involve them talking to each other.

Eddie grabbed Richie after their shared Pre-Calculus class one day, feeling bold and just desperate enough to make the first move. “Can we talk?”

“Eddie.” Richie looked at him like he was waking up from a dream, and Eddie was coaxing him back into reality. “Is everything okay?”

“For us, yeah.” Eddie walked him out into the hallway. “For the rest of our friends, not so much.”

Richie winced. “You’re talking about Big Bill, yeah?”

“Confirmed.” Eddie looked at his feet, more affected by his closeness to Richie than he wanted to be.

“Ah, shit.” Richie kicked at the air. “April said something about that. I thought she made it up, though. Drama queen and all that.”

Eddie bit back a smile at Richie’s little dig at his girlfriend. “We should talk to Bill, right? He probably feels kind of abandoned.”

“I mean, he deserves that, kind of.” Richie shifted his weight from side to side antsily. “It was a real dick move. But... _we?_ ”

“Dick move, big time,” Eddie agreed, “but we’re his friends, and we’ve been shitty friends to him this past year. Both of us. I’m not saying that’s what drove him to do this, but...I think we can do better, you know?”

There was a brief, tense silence. Richie seemed to be debating whether or not to say something.

Finally, he spoke. “I mean, you’re not wrong. I’ve kind of been a shitty friend to _everyone_ this year.”

“You have,” Eddie said, words slipping out before he could stop them, “but it’s not, like, unfixable.”

Richie eyed him with interest. “No?”

“No,” Eddie echoed, and it felt bigger than just an affirmation that Richie could patch things up with Bill.”

“In that case,” Richie said slowly, fighting back a smile, “lemme figure out how to stave off the ol’ ball and chain so we can go be friends with Billiam again. Wanna catch him after school and drag him to the movies or some shit?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me.” Eddie grabbed at his backpack straps, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Uh. Meet by the bike rack near the front? It’ll take me a minute to get there from Ceramics, but I’ll do my best.”

“2:30, bike rack. Roger roger.” Richie saluted, and then paused. “Hey, Eds.”

“Yeah, Rich?” Eddie asked, a little wary of Richie’s soft tone.

“We’re gonna hang out again during musical season, right?” Richie asked, eyes hopeful.

“That’s up to you,” Eddie responded honestly, shifting his backpack again.

Richie jiggled his leg a little, thinking. “Yeah. Yeah, I can...I’d like that. I miss-”

The bell rang. They were officially both late to third block.

“2:30,” Eddie reminded him quickly, scuttling away and checking his phone. There were two unread texts from Jonathan, and he felt guilt settle in his stomach like a lead weight.

Yikes.

\----

Auditions for the musical were three weeks later, and things between Bill, Bev, and Audra were...tense, to say the least.

It was up to Eddie to keep the peace, mostly, and he tried his best (albeit begrudgingly) but when the atmosphere was as competitive as it was during audition weeks, there was only so much that anyone could do, let alone Eddie. He kept himself sane by giving Eddie Corcoran bizarre tasks. It was kind of mean, but the hilarity of it outweighed the shittiness by far, so Eddie refused to feel too badly about it.

Richie would have helped, but he, too, was in the process of being dumped. Eddie didn’t know specifics about the issue Richie and April were supposedly breaking up over, but he’d heard rumors (through Bev) that April wasn’t super happy that Richie and Eddie were amicable with one another again.

“She’s jealous,” Bev said at lunch, stirring her fruit cup and pointedly only speaking to Eddie and Ben. “This summer, Richie told her that he was bisexual, and ever since, she’s been jealous of you, Eddie.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “All of that’s a dumb rumor.”

Bev looked over at Richie, and Eddie followed suit. Richie had been looking at them, too - had been staring in their direction while April ran him through the ringer on the other side of the table - but upon meeting Eddie’s eyes, he quickly turned away, apparently embarrassed.

“Who says it’s a rumor?” she asked, too knowingly. Eddie didn’t want to dwell on that, so he’d changed the subject.

The grand finale of the relationship happened in front of the musical cast list on the day it was posted. Richie had gotten one of the leads, and April had been cast as a principal dancer - not as a specific part.

Eddie had eavesdropped on it from behind a locker door.

“You’re so fucking selfish, Rich!” April was screaming, effectively throwing a tantrum. “You get these parts, you get this attention, and the people around you just...don’t matter!”

Richie looked uncomfortable and sad. He picked at the fuzzies on his pink and orange sweater. “Jeez, April--”

“Why did you even ask me out?” she continued, close to tears. “For attention? To save your stupid reputation because people were starting to whisper about you sleeping with that kid from the stage crew?”

“He’s the stage _manager_ ,” Richie said coldly, “and crew’s the most important piece of the whole shebang, April, you know that.”

“That’s not the point, dumbshit!” April all but squawked, digging a pencil out of her bag and crossing her name off of the cast list entirely. “I’m not accepting my part, and I don’t think we should see each other any more.”

“I think that would be wise,” agreed Richie, unnervingly solemn.

“Great.” April turned on her heel. “Have fun fucking that bitchy little midget.”

“His name is Eddie,” Richie called, obviously angry, “and don’t talk about him like that.”

Eddie decided that he’d hidden long enough. He closed the locker door loud enough to attract Richie’s attention. “You’re actually gonna call me Eddie, now?”

Richie jumped. “Shit. Eds. How long have you been there?”

Eddie shrugged. “Long enough.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie quickly apologized, “it’s not...she doesn’t really mean any of it. She’s just pissed.”

“Fuck her and all of that,” Eddie said dismissively, “and good riddance to the stupid Rent joke you made every single time you got to introduce her to someone else.”

“Her naaaaame was April,” Richie sang sadly. “That’s the one part I’ll miss, probably.”

“Anyway,” Eddie pressed on, “congratulations. You’re gonna be great up there.”

Richie smiled a small smile. “Thanks. Me and Billy Denbrough, up in the big town.”

“Just you, for now. With Bev playing Bill’s stepmother and Audra playing his love interest, he’ll have his hands full with trying to juggle his own personal shit. Never mind the show.”

“You’re right,” Richie conceded, grin widening, “but that just means I’ll have to rehearse my part with you, Spaghetti, won’t I?”

“Deal,” Eddie said, a little too quickly. He realized his mistake, and tacked on an addendum. “Loser.”

Richie laughed, and Eddie ghosted his hand over the phone in his pocket.

It was probably time to break up with Jonathan.

\----

It took Eddie seven more weeks and three more days to carry out that resolve.

He could hardly blame himself for it. He was basically the busiest kid in all of fucking Derry, Maine, what with managing a whole goddamn musical in the midst of his SATs and AP tests. It was a miracle his brain hadn’t fallen out of his head by now.

He was also spending more time with his friends for the first time in a long time, which was time consuming...but also relieving in so many ways. First off, it meant that the Bev and Bill thing was starting to blow over. (It was still a little tense, but everyone was finally able to sit in the same room again after the second week of the show, so that was progress, at least.) Second, it meant that Eddie had a place to vent again. Third...well, Richie. Richie was third.

Richie was first and second, too, if Eddie was being honest with himself. Richie was everything.

“You’ve got to tell Jonathan,” Stan told him on the phone after rehearsal one night. (Eddie called Stan pretty regularly for stage managing advice and bitch sessions.) “He’s starting to worry about you. You’ve been texting way less.”

“I know,” Eddie said grimly, “but I just...want a backup, you know?”

Stan didn’t speak for a moment. “I don’t think I do know, actually.”

Eddie huffed a piece of hair out of his eyes. “It means that I don’t know if Richie’s actually gonna come around, and I don’t want to lose Jonathan for anything that’s not a sure bet.”

“That’s selfish,” Stan pointed out. “You obviously don’t have strong feelings for Jonathan. You have strong feelings for Richie.”

“Strong feelings for who?” Richie came out of the auditorium, hoodie tied around his waist and curls tied back into what Eddie assumed was a bun. Eddie froze - he hadn’t realized that Richie was still there.

“Your sister,” Stan said, having heard Richie in the background. “Eddie, put me on speaker.” Eddie did, holding out the phone so that Richie could hear. “Am I on? Yes? Do I have Dick Tozier on the phone?”

“Stan the Man!” Richie cheered, grinning gleefully down at the phone. “What’re we chattin’ about, fellas?”

“Have you met Eddie’s boyfriend Jonathan?” Stan asked, not wasting time or pulling any punches.

The smile immediately vanished from Richie’s face. “Sure. He was at your shindig in October, right Stanny?”

“I think they should break up,” said Stan, blunt as ever. “What do you think, Richard?”

Eddie could practically see the cogs in Richie’s head spinning. For himself, he was sure that his face was bright red - sunburn red, tomato red, basically a fire truck.

“I think Eddie should do what makes him happy,” Richie said finally, looking back at Eddie with an expression that made Eddie a little weak in the knees.

“Disgusting,” Stan sighed. “Break up with him, Eddie. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye,” Eddie said, and hung up.

Eddie expected Richie to walk away immediately once he didn’t have Stan to provoke, but to his surprise, Richie stayed standing with Eddie outside of the auditorium door.

“What’s he like?” Richie asked softly. “Jonathan, I mean.”

Eddie thought for a moment about how best to answer that question.

“He’s nice,” Eddie finally decided. “He’s not...I mean...he’s nice.”

Richie nodded, still contemplative. “Well, it’s up to you, Eds, but.” He fixed Eddie with an intense stare before turning to go back into the auditorium to practice his act two duet with Bill. “You know what I’m hoping for.”

Eddie had absolutely no idea what Richie was hoping for. Richie had gone totally fickle the last time Eddie had even pretended to be nice to him - the fall of their sophomore year had changed something, and Eddie was still deathly curious as to what.

“I’ll decide on my own time, thanks.” Eddie said to Richie’s retreating back.

Richie paused before the door to the auditorium, tapping his hand on the door handle contemplatively. “If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s to not waste my time on people that I don’t care about that much.” He looked at Eddie, strangely serious. “Even if I get scared about having strong feelings - better that than to be stuck in stupid limbo.”

“What does that mean?” Eddie called after him, but Richie was halfway inside, no longer listening at all.

\----  
Eddie talked to Jonathan even less after that, putting off the inevitable breakup conversation while waiting for Richie to give him a more definitive sign. Richie, unfortunately, wasn’t taking any hints. The casual flirting and banter was back, but it was the same as it had always been - nothing had escalated or changed in any way. Eddie felt a little bit trapped by all of it.

Ms. Starrett wasn’t helping. She was delighted by the return of her dynamic duo-of-sorts, and found every opportunity to throw the two of them together, chirping excitedly about ‘friendship’ and ‘production value’ and whatever else was exciting to drama teachers. She’d even given them a little ‘bit’ onstage. (For this show, much to Eddie’s personal chagrin, the crew were in costume and maneuvering among the actors during actual stage time, as opposed to breaks and blackouts.) She’d wanted Eddie to dance with Richie, but Eddie had point blank threatened to quit, so she made it so that Richie offered him a flower mid-song instead. It wasn’t huge, but it made Eddie grind his teeth a little bit.

(After the first time they did the flower thing, Bev pulled Eddie aside and told him that she’d never seen him smile so wide for anything ever. Eddie had smacked her arm and told her a series of rude things that she could do to herself.)

There was also the unfortunate fact that Richie had more quick-changes in this show than ever before, and so as his unofficial dresser, Eddie was forced to come into frequent contact with Richie’s mostly naked body. If he’d thought being 15 and hormonal had sucked….well, that’s because he hadn’t tried being 17 and hormonal yet. It got so that he was wearing the same pair of pants several days in a row because they were the only black pants he owned that were halfway decent at concealing what he had going on. 

Richie, for his part, was way more relaxed through the changing process than he had been in the past...and there was something else with it, too, something Eddie couldn’t place. More than once, Eddie had caught Richie watching with a strange, dark expression as Eddie did up his shoes. It was unnerving, and weirdly hot.

By the time the show rolled around, Eddie was about ready to explode from pent-up frustration, both emotional and sexual.

“Five to places!” he called out around the dressing room, trying hard to focus on everyone except Richie, who was sprawled across a chair in dance leggings with his legs spread wide.

“Thank you five,” everyone chorused. Bev came up to him and smoothed out his hair.

“Thank you, five,” she repeated, smiling up at him. “Happy show, sweetheart.”

“Happy happy.” Eddie rolled his eyes, feeling a little bit like Stan in the moment.

“You gonna break up with that boy?” she asked. This was the real reason for her pleasantries - Eddie could see it in her eyes, and he groaned quietly.

“I’m trying to run a show here, woman.”

“You should,” Ben chimed in from over the headset. Eddie jumped - he had forgotten to turn it off when he’d walked into the dressing room. “We hardly talk about him anymore. It’s like you don’t care at all.”

Eddie shrugged. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

Bev looked pointedly between Eddie and Richie. “Make it happen soon, okay? For all of our sakes.”

“What the fuck,” Eddie said flatly, “are you talking about.”

She kissed him on the cheek in response. “You dumb, oblivious nerd. Have a good show.”

“You too,” Eddie said, wishing that everyone would stop being so vague and just tell him things directly.

\----

Richie was brilliant in the show. Richie was always brilliant on stage (not that Eddie would ever, _ever_ tell him that), but this part was all but made for him, and the audience was absolutely captivated by every single second he spent in front of them. Eddie watched a lot of the show from the wings - more than was probably sanctionable, given that he needed to call cues - and drank in the way that the crowd was responding to Richie. It was magic - that give and take, between performer and audience - and Richie knew that, was completely devoted to that connection.

Because it was show weekend, Eddie figured that he had a pass to think and feel what he wanted to feel, so he let himself bask in Richie’s triumph. He let himself smile genuinely in the moment he shared onstage with Richie; allowed himself to let his hands linger a little bit longer on Richie during quick-changes. He would go back to being reserved and cautious about his feelings after. He had earned this. They’d gone through enough.

He was all but thrown back into reality when he saw Jonathan’s face in the throng of people waiting for them after the final show. He, Stan, and Mike were standing in a line together against the far wall of the lobby. Stan and Mike looked proud. Jonathan looked...trepiduous.

“Eddie,” Jonathan called, gesturing him over. “C’mere.”

Eddie walked over nervously. Stan and Mike looked like they were coming over to greet him, but when Jonathan cut in front of them, they decided better of it, and walked away to give them a moment.

“Jonathan,” Eddie said softly. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Jonathan looked...tired. “I don’t know anything about stage managing, but Stan said you did well, so...congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Eddie said, “thank you for coming.”

“Yeah, ‘course.” Jonathan sighed, and bounced his shoulders as if gearing himself up for something. “Listen, I don’t wanna ruin your big night-”

“You’re breaking up with me,” Eddie guessed, not at all surprised.

Jonathan nodded. “I was gonna come and ask what I was doing wrong or what I could fix, but.”

“But?” Eddie asked, genuinely curious.

“Seeing you up there with that guy...Randy?”

Eddie snickered. “I mean, accurate adjective, but no. Richie.”

“Richie.” Jonathan looked embarrassed. “Well. Seeing you up there with Richie was...telling.”

Eddie let out a long breath. If Jonathan had noticed, then he was probably being painfully obvious. Like... _Richie’s probably also noticed_ levels of obvious.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and was surprised to find that he genuinely meant it. He’d been a real dick for stringing Jonathan along, and he felt incredibly bad about the fact that Jonathan had come all the way up here just to be forced to watch Eddie be smitten with Richie.

“It’s okay.” Jonathan’s voice wasn’t even shaky. Eddie felt a little better. “I’m not here to get in the way of love, honest. I just wish you’d told me.”

“I didn’t know how,” Eddie said, grateful that he hadn’t broken Jonathan’s heart too badly.

“I get that.” Jonathan stepped back, making to rejoin Stan and Mike. “Hey, don’t be a stranger, okay? Tell me how things go.”

“I will,” Eddie promised, feeling light. “Thank you so much, Jonathan.”

“So long, sweet Eddie,” Jonathan called back with a wave.

“Spaghetti!” It was out with one boy and in with another, it seemed. Eddie felt his cheeks color at the sound of Richie’s voice, thinking about the blessing Jonathan had basically just bestowed on their potential relationship. “Congratulations, kiddo, you did it!”

“ _You_ did it,” Eddie insisted. “You were amazing, Rich.”

Richie beamed. “You know, I never thought I’d hear you say anything even remotely that nice to me.”

“We’re friends,” Eddie pointed out.

“Sometimes,” Richie said, reaching out to put a tentative hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “Um. Anyway. I--”

“EDWARD.” A screeching voice rang out through the crowd. Eddie jumped back from Richie’s hand, feeling like he’d been burned.

Why the fuck was his mother here?

“Did you like the show, mama?” he asked weakly, turning towards where Sonia was pushing her way through to him.

“What’s your name?” She ignored Eddie and turned on Richie, drawing herself up in an attempt to look intimidating. Richie still towered over her, though, so really all she was doing was making herself look foolish.

“Mrs. K?” Richie looked positively delighted. He obviously hadn’t noticed how much danger he was in. “Oh, have I been waiting to meet you. I’m Richie Tozier,” and he stopped and winked, “but you can call me Dick.”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to disappear into the floor.

“Disgusting.” Sonia jerked back from where Richie was standing, eyes livid. “So you’re the ruffian who corrupted my son, Richie Tozier.”

“Corrupted, huh?” Richie turned to Eddie, eyebrows raised. “Well, not yet, Mrs. K, but rest assured--”

Sonia whipped a familiar photo out of her purse. Eddie felt ill.

“Tell me,” she said, “that you haven’t swayed my son into being... _that way_. Tell me to my face.”

“Richie didn’t make me gay, mama.” Eddie cut in between his mother and Richie, desperately trying to save the latter from whatever was going to come next. “I did.”

It felt alarmingly good to be honest in front of his mother, and only part of that had to do with how impressed Richie looked with him.

Sonia’s face turned white, and her eyes narrowed. She seized Eddie by the wrist. “We’re going home, Edward.”

“Mom--” Eddie began to protest, thinking of the cast party and the way that Richie had touched his arm.

“You are not to be a part of this program anymore,” she said, beginning to drag him away.

“No!” Eddie struggled against her strong grip, but she held firm.

“You are 17 years old,” she hissed, “and you will live by my rules yet, so help me God.”

“Mrs. K,” Richie called from behind them, sounding a little desperate. “Give Eds a break, he’s not even--”

“He’s not,” Sonia agreed, whipping around to have one last exchange with Richie. “ _You_ are.”

Richie, for once, didn’t have a response. He gaped, lips moving uselessly. Sonia scoffed, turned, and marched Eddie out away from his friends and back into isolation.

That night, she took the door off of his room, confiscated his phone and computer, and sent him to bed, where he cried uselessly into his pillow for a full hour.

Why could things never be easy?

When Sonia forced him to skip the end of year drama awards two weeks later, he wrote out a certificate for himself and stuck it on the fridge to spite her.

_‘Most Unfortunate Drama Club Member’._

Seemed about fucking right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben: Eddie either turn off your goddamn headset or stop breathing deeply into it whenever Richie bends over in his black slacks
> 
> Okay, so my first thought was to name this woman Sandy (after the woman Richie almost marries in the novel, and also that would be funny as fuck in a theatre fic), but 1. this fandom's got plenty of Grease AUs going around and 2. I really liked the idea of Richie as Roger as put forth in one of the installments of WaxAgent's Lovesong (READ. LOVESONG. PLEASE.), hence: April.
> 
> Please come talk to me about theatre, etc. in the comments! or at  
> strictlyamess.tumblr.com (main)  
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com (writing)


	4. Senior Year, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Things will be different this year, mama,” he said softly, looking at his Keds. “Can I go?”
> 
> Things would be different. Things were already different, but she didn’t know that yet. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to know that at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I....decided to break this up, for plot and suspense and intrigue reasons. Sorry! Without further ado...part 1 :)

Sonia kept Eddie pretty much confined to his room all summer, which was kind of a blessing, but mostly a curse.

The curse part was pretty straightforward. Eddie finished his summer work at the beginning of the third week, and from then on had absolutely nothing to do but daydream and (God forbid) spend time with his mother. Time with Sonia usually started with the television and ended with the bible, so on most days, Eddie picked the first option. He curled up on his bed with a book or a notepad and lost himself thinking and drawing and dreaming of thick glasses, freckled shoulders, and big hands. It would have been sweet and romantic, except that it was a far, far cry from the real thing.

The blessing part came in the form of the real thing, by way of the drainpipe.

On a hot night in the middle of July, Eddie was laying on his bed, _Pride and Prejudice_ folded open on his stomach (it was his fifth readthrough - Lizzie Bennett was up there with Elle Woods on his list of role models) and Whitney Houston playing on his small alarm clock radio. He was in the middle of one of his favorite daydreams - the one where he and Richie ran away together to New York - when he heard it.

Something was tapping against his window.

Eddie, figuring it was a squirrel or some other annoying form of New England wildlife, tried to pull himself back into the daydream. He focused on the shade of Richie’s eyes and the slow, easy stretch of Richie’s mouth, and was just about back to the fantasy when the tap came again.

Cursing under his breath, he set Jane Austen aside and went out to see what was making noise.

When he drew back the curtains, the sight he was met with made him trip over his own feet and fall backwards onto his pink rug.

Richie Tozier was trying to curl his whole body around the frame of Eddie’s window, hanging on with his fingertips and looking terrified as shit.

Once Eddie wrapped his mind around what was happening, he jumped up to open the already cracked window the rest of the way up.

“You could have let yourself in, dumbass,” Eddie chastised him breathlessly, smiling in spite of himself.

“It didn’t seem polite,” Richie replied, gently uncoiling himself and gingerly hoisting his way into the room. He wasn’t very good at it - it took him a couple of different tries to fit his long, stickbug legs through the window in a way that made sense. Eddie did his best to stifle his laughter, but he wasn’t strong enough to choke it back, so he settled for giggling under his breath.

“To what do I owe the displeasure?” Eddie asked, still smiling as he watched Richie try and regain his bearings on the floor of his room. “And how did you know where I live? You’ve never been over here before.”

“I asked Bill.” Richie didn’t seem embarrassed about that in the slightest. “Anyway. I figured you were lonely up here in your prison, and no one else was confident in their drainpipe shimmying skills, so...voila.”

“Voila,” Eddie echoed, drinking in the details of Richie’s face like a man starved. (It had been almost two months; Eddie supposed he was starved, in a way.) “I...uh. I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, I do,” Richie said, and launched into a spirited soliloquy about Bev’s most recent Target shoplifting excursion like they were at the lunch table at school rather than in the middle of Eddie’s dimly lit bedroom that Richie had, within the last five minutes, effectively broken into. Eddie was having trouble listening...not because the story wasn’t interesting, but rather because he wasn’t quite sure if Richie was real or not. After about five minutes, he held up a hand.

“Richie, why did you come here?”

Richie stopped mid-sentence, obviously thrown off. “Huh?”

Eddie squirmed a little. “This isn’t...we don’t see each other except at school. We don’t hang out in the summer. I don’t understand.”

Richie fidgeted with his glasses, obviously embarrassed. “I told you...I figured--”

“Richie,” Eddie said, not interested in putting up with bullshit, “I know what you said.”

Richie huffed out a breath. “I...thought things were different, this year.”

Eddie’s heart leapt. Different?

“Different how?” he asked, searching Richie’s expressive face for any sign of...well, anything.

Richie was truly a consummate actor. He gave Eddie absolutely nothing. “Just...different.”

“Oh.” Eddie willed himself not to feel disappointed. “Carry on.”

Richie did.

He was right, in a way. It was different, one hundred percent different, but not in a way that either of them had to talk about. In fact, talking about it would have ruined whatever electricity was in the air.

Richie talked to him almost all night, and only left because the birds were beginning to sing. After that, his visits became a weekly ritual, and whatever was crackling between them grew stronger and stronger every time. Nothing ever happened, they just sat and talked and stared and smiled, but there was a promise in it - an understanding that it wasn’t ‘if’ something was ever going to happen, but ‘when’.

Even with that being the case, the summer wound down without Eddie’s relationship with Richie escalating at all...except for the fact that they were finally on good enough terms that Eddie wasn’t dreading seeing Richie in school in September.

This year, Sonia had taken up the mantle of dreading Eddie seeing Richie in school in September.

“What are you to do if you see him in school, Eddie Bear?” She had gone all out for his last first day of school - made him a full breakfast, took one million photos, the whole shebang - and now she was trying to use all of her “kindness” to her advantage.

“Avoid him, ma, I know.” Eddie rolled his eyes, itching to get out the door.

“And if he--”

“I won’t touch him, I won’t talk to him, I’ll make friends with girls.” Eddie rattled off all the things he knew she wanted to hear, biting back a long, tortured sigh.

“Good.” Sonia seemed satisfied. Well, almost satisfied. “I still don’t know if it would be wise to let you rejoin that club…”

“The drama club needs me, ma,” Eddie insisted. “I’m the only one who can run their backstage stuff. It’s important.”

Sonia fixed him with her most intimidating stare. “If things start to go back to the way they were, Edward, I’ll have to make some phone calls to doctors. Do you want me to make phone calls to doctors?”

Eddie felt nauseous. There was no question what kind of doctors she’d send him to - in fact, he was pretty surprised he hadn’t been shipped off there already.

“Things will be different this year, mama,” he said softly, looking at his Keds. “Can I go?”

Things would be different. Things were already different, but she didn’t know that yet. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to know that at all.

“Yes.” She tapped her cheek, and he quickly stepped forward and kissed it, stomach still churning. “Have a wonderful first day, sweetheart. Senior year!”

“Senior year,” he repeated, numbly pushing his way out the door.

Richie was waiting for him by the side entrance to the school, where all the drama kids snuck in to hang in the band room before classes started. Eddie thought of his mother...and pushed the thought aside, instead choosing to smile as he approached Richie, heart thrumming in his chest.

“All right, Eds?” Richie smiled back, and Eddie noticed with a little jolt that the remnants of the little bug-eyed kid that flirted with him at their first ever drama workshop were still visible in the crinkles around his eyes; the stretch of his lips. So much had changed, so much was different...but it was the same, too. Eddie kind of liked that it was both. Different and the same.

“Don’t call me Eds,” he said warmly. “Are you ready?”

“Senior year?” Richie laughed, loud and full. “Are you kidding? I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.” He slung an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and began to drag him inside. “Let’s go ruuuuule the schooooool.” 

 

Eddie followed. He was ready, too.

\----

The fall was...tense.

For once, it wasn’t Eddie’s fault. He and Richie fell back into old habits, to the point where Eddie wondered sometimes if he’d imagined whatever spark he was feeling over the summer...but it was okay; it was probably better that they were being professional about their working relationship.

(Eddie didn’t _want_ to be professional about their working relationship...but how was he supposed to tell Richie he didn’t want to be professional when he, the stage manager, was meant to be the apex of professionalism?)

“You’ve got to stop calling me about this,” Stan had told him exasperatedly, after Eddie had called him for the forty-sixth time asking about how he’d managed his relationship with Mike.

“I’m dying, Stan,” Eddie whined, curling into himself on his bed.

“Please do that on your own time.” Stan hung up.

Even with that being the case, the drama club tension was still concentrated hard on Bev, Bill, and Audra. Bill and Audra were still together, and while Bev was pretty solidly over Bill, she was still annoyed by the whole thing.

She was also playing opposite Bill in the fall play. Eddie had groaned upon seeing the cast list - it was clearly one of Ms. Starrett’s reconciliation techniques, and it was absolutely doomed to fail. Offstage, Bill and Bev were more separate than ever, and onstage, their animosity was bleeding into their acting. Richie was all but tearing out his hair over having to share the stage with them.

The worst day of it came in early October, when Bill came to the lunch room from a study-hall meeting with Ms. Starrett with capital ‘N’ News.

“She liked my puh-play!” Bill said excitedly, sliding a copy of the piece he’d been working on in creative writing for the last three years across the table. “She wants to do it this winter!”

They all gaped back at him, astonished. “She wants to put on your student play? As like…a school thing?” Eddie asked, not sure if he’d heard him correctly.

Bill nodded. “She does.”

There was another moment of stunned silence at the table, and then Bev broke it by getting up to leave.

“Bev, seriously?” Bill asked incredulously, clearly fed up with her attitude.

“Seriously what, Bill?” Bev whipped around, glaring daggers at him. “When’s the other shoe gonna drop, huh?”

Bill furrowed his brow. “I don’t follow.”

Bev threw up the arm that wasn’t clutching her stuff. “Oh, I don’t know. You cheat on me - no repercussions, you’re still in a relationship, I’m left out to dry. You write a play, we’re doing it, no questions asked. What about us, huh? What about me?” Her voice broke, and she looked away. Ben reached out a hand to her, but she recoiled from it, clinging so hard to her things that her knuckles turned white. 

“I’m sorry,” Bill said, soft and open. “I’m really sorry, Bev. I didn’t do any of it right.”

“You didn’t,” Bev agreed hotly.

“We should have broken up months before,” he continued, “but I didn’t know how to tell you that, because I wanted so badly to be your friend.”

“Well now what?” Bev asked, softer now. “We’re not friends.”

“You’re right. We’re not.” Bill looked at her, unwavering, and Eddie found himself impressed by the way that Bill was handling things. In another life, Bill might have served as a good leader for the group...but they were beyond that, now. “I want to try again.”

Bev turned her gaze to Audra, who had kept mercifully quiet though the whole argument. “And what do you think?”

“I think it’s a good idea.” Audra’s eyes remained on her tray of food. “He wants you to be his costume designer, and I think it’s a good idea, Beverly.”

Bev snapped her eyes back up to Bill in surprise. “Is that true?”

Bill nodded. “And I was hoping Ben could do sets and luh-lights, if that’s of interest to him.”

Ben looked at Bev. “I’ll think about it.”

There was a silence as they waited for Bev to speak, and then:

“Me too,” Bev said, almost inaudibly. “I’m….me too.”

Eddie and Richie looked at each other, hopeful and amazed.

They were right to have hope. Things slowly started to improve after that. The anger seeped out of Bill and Bev’s acting, first, and then out of their time at rehearsal, and finally it dissipated altogether. Lunch was suddenly a much more comfortable and inclusive experience. Ben in particular was smiling more than Eddie had ever seen him smile before in his life.

The only downside to the reconciliation was that it meant that Eddie and Richie’s not-relationship was back to being the group’s Big Shitty Feelings Thing. Bev specifically would not shut up about it, and so Eddie was forced to rehash every single Richie encounter to her in horrifying detail. He wasn’t really sure why she wanted to know, but he indulged her anyway (because he felt like he had to...definitely NOT because he enjoyed it at all in any way, shape, or form).

“He keeps leaning up against me at the lunch table.” Eddie and Bev had set up a little arrangement of chairs in a corner backstage for themselves during the weekend of the fall play, and when Bev wasn’t on stage, that space was their new gossip headquarters. “One of these days, I’m just going to fall over and die, I swear to God.”

“I was thinking, actually,” she said, picking at her manicure.

“Dangerous,” Eddie replied, arching an eyebrow.

“Definitely.” She looked over at him and smirked. “What about the cast party?”

Eddie stared back. “What about the cast party?”

“That’s when you should make your move,” she said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Was it the simplest thing in the world…? 

His responsibilities to the fall play would be over, so he wouldn’t have to worry about professionalism, he’d be surrounded by friends, so he wouldn’t have to worry about comfort, and as for courage...

“Your Aunt is hosting, right? Will there be substances?”

“Wine and beer,” she confirmed.

To his excitement and mild horror, the beginnings of a plan were already starting to form in Eddie’s mind.

“That might not be such a bad idea,” he conceded to Bev as she got up to listen for her cue. “I guess we’ll see.”

\---

The plan in its finished form was simply to get absolutely blitzed and find Richie, and within his first hour of being at Bev’s, Eddie was most of the way finished with step one.

“I just really miss you, Stanny,” he slurred into his phone, slipping across the kitchen in his socks. (He’d taken his shoes off by the door like a proper houseguest.) “I wanna...you’re just such a good friend! Such a good friend. Best friend.”

“Is there a way to record phone conversations?” Stan, on the other end, was entirely sober, and apparently bitter about it. “I want to tape this one so I can play it back to you the next time you insist you’re not annoying.”

“Bev wants me to find Richie,” Eddie continued, undeterred, “but I can’t do that r’now.”

“Why?” Stan asked, without any real interest.

“No control,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes because wasn’t it obvious? “Dunno what I’d do. Might be dangerous.”

“What you’d do, huh?” Without warning, hands appeared on either side of Eddie, boxing him in against the counter island. Eddie knew exactly who it was, but he made a show of turning around anyway, all the while pretending that his heart wasn’t trying to escape his chest.

Richie was looking down at him with the most intense expression Eddie had ever seen him wear - and he’d seen Richie do basically the whole spectrum of human emotion onstage.

Boldly, Eddie reached up and balled his fist in the front of Richie’s black show t-shirt. He felt Richie’s breath hitch, and felt powerful. “You wanna find out, Rich?”

“For fuck’s sake, you two,” Eddie had dropped his phone on the counter, so Stan was yelling to get their attention, “stop dragging this out and get to it. I’m leaving.”

The phone went silent, and they were left to stare at each other. The crackling feeling from the summer was back, and it was so fucking thick that it was hard to move…

...but Richie managed to, somehow. He fastened a hand around Eddie’s left wrist and pulled him away from the counter, out of the kitchen, up the stairs...into a bedroom.

Holy shit.

Eddie was too drunk to really feel or understand the gravity of the situation, but he knew that whatever happened was about to be momentous, so as soon as Richie closed the door, he crowded his space, not wanting to miss a single second of whatever was coming next.

“Eds?” Richie whispered, somehow both tentative and desperate, and that was it for Eddie. He surged forward, grabbing the fabric around the collar of Richie’s shirt and sinking his teeth into the skin between Richie’s neck and the slope of his shoulders.

“Fuck,” Richie breathed, burying his hands in the fabric of the back of Eddie’s drama sweatshirt while Eddie worked to kiss down his neck. “Eddie Kaspbrak, holy shit, holy fucking shit.”

He pulled Eddie’s head away and moved to kiss Eddie on the lips, but Eddie dodged out of the way. (He’d seen Pretty Woman. He knew what would happen if he let himself get too emotionally invested in what they were doing. Richie was a notorious horndog, and the more Eddie concentrated on that, the easier this would be.) “What do you want, Rich?”

Richie ran his fingers down and under Eddie’s sweatshirt, digging his fingers into the flesh of Eddie’s back. “So much, sweetheart, but I don’t want to scare you.”

Eddie couldn’t help but smile at that. He took a step backwards and took stock of Richie’s wrecked expression, marveling at how different it was from the cocky, lead-actor front that Richie usually put up, and felt a warm sort of pride blooming in his chest. He’d been the one to shake up the otherwise unflappable Richie Tozier. He had that power.

More than that, he planned to exercise it - starting by slowly sinking to his knees.

Richie looked down at him, beet red, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Dressing practice?” he joked, but he was too nervous for his words to hold any real humor.

“I want this,” Eddie said, sliding his hands up Richie’s legs slowly - more to steady himself than to be sensual, but Richie seemed affected nevertheless. “I’m not afraid.”

“Gonna dirty talk like you call light cues, huh? Short and sw--” Richie began to say, but Eddie effectively shut him up by going for the button on his pants. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck. Eddie, holy fuck, I...you don’t have...hhhnnn...”

Eddie ignored him in favor of unzipping his pants and pulling them down around his thighs. He huffed out a little laugh at Richie’s lucky Aquaman boxers...and earned himself a soft, high whimper from Richie.

He tore his eyes from Richie’s crotch and turned them up to Richie’s face, trying to gauge how he was doing. He was met with an expression that was equal parts lust and panic.

“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes huge in the reflection of his still-terrible glasses. “I didn’t bring you up here to--”

Eddie, drunk and confident, moved his hand up to grope at the very, very prominent outline of Richie’s dick in his boxers. It was bigger than Eddie had registered it being when he’d come in almost-contact with it backstage...or was that just the alcohol distorting things?

Anyway, he had his hand on it, which was fucking awesome and awkward and everything in between. Richie made a noise like a wounded animal and jerked his hips forward.

“Okay?” Eddie asked, head swimming. “I didn’t...I don’t know what I’m doing, really, so if it’s bad--”

“Not bad,” Richie said quickly, reaching down and burying a hand in Eddie’s hair. “Really, really not bad.”

“Good,” Eddie whispered, leaning forward to mouth over Richie’s still-clothed erection. Richie let out a stream of expletives above him, which was encouraging, so Eddie pressed a final little kiss to Richie’s confined dick and moved his hands up to the waistband of Richie’s boxers. “We never got this far backstage.”

“No, but Jesus...you don’t know how many times I’ve looked down and thought...I thought…” Richie tugged at Eddie’s hair a little bit, obviously still nervous.

“Tell me you want me,” Eddie asked, hazily recognizing Richie’s nerves. “Richie.”

“Fuck, Eds, I’m...I’ve never done this either, I don’t mean to...yes, I want you, yes, yes, yes.”

Eddie filed the ‘never done this before’ factoid away as something to bring up with him later, and pulled down Richie’s boxers in one deft tug. Richie’s dick was right there to greet him; in fact, it all but hit him in the face as it sprang free, which made Eddie laugh a little bit. Classic Richie - even his genitals were overenthusiastic.

Richie, for his part, was looking down at Eddie like Eddie had personally handed him a million dollars in cash. Eddie preened at that a little bit, and used it as encouragement to lean forward and take the tip of Richie’s dick in his mouth.

The rest of it was sort of a blur.

He remembered having as much of Richie in his mouth as he could possibly hold - practically choking - and being thankful for years of practice dry-swallowing pills. He remembered the bitter taste of skin, strong and all-consuming. He remembered Richie mumbling what Eddie assumed was nonsense above him and stroking feverishly through his hair.

It was over in less than five minutes. Eddie was too lost in the spin of the world and his mind to register Richie’s attempts to get him to come up off of his dick, so he ended up with a mouthful of jizz. That would have really freaked Sober Eddie out, but Drunk Eddie didn’t care. He found a box of tissues on the nightstand nearby, took one out, and spit.

After he was finished, Richie sat on the bed and gestured for Eddie to join him. He was flushed and sweaty and there was a huge grin on his stupid fucking face and Eddie loved him, loved him, loved him so much that he could practically already feel his heart breaking with the knowledge that this wasn’t permanent.

Against his better judgement, Eddie crossed to the bed and flopped over onto it, painfully aware of his proximity to Richie.

“Hey.” Eddie heard and felt Richie sink down beside him. “Hey. Look at me.”

Eddie picked his head up to look. Richie was peering over at him, practically close enough to kiss.

“That was fucking incredible,” he whispered, and Eddie felt his insides freeze, because wasn’t that usually a lead into _‘but let’s stay friends’_ or _‘no homo’_ or whatever?

Richie didn’t keep talking, though. Instead, he tried for a kiss again...and Eddie rolled over, chest clenching painfully. He couldn’t handle intimacy with Richie if it was just going to be like this. He could handle what they’d just done, but some things were...too much.

Richie pulled him back over again. “Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Everything’s fine.”

“Obviously not, dumbass.” He felt Richie’s hand under his jaw, and shuddered. “Jesus, Eds...are you drunk?”

Eddie opened his eyes at that, peering confusedly back up at Richie. “We’re both drunk.”

Richie looked like he was about to throw up. “No...no, I’m not, I...oh, fucking FUCK, Eddie.”

“Are you mad at me?” Eddie whispered, watching Richie’s hands moving from his lap to his hair and back again and feeling like he was somehow disconnected from what was happening in his own life.

“No, not you, never you.” Richie yanked his pants back up shakily. “Mad at myself, mad for taking advantage of you and getting my hopes up and just...fuck, Eddie.”

He was leaving. Eddie must have done something wrong, because Richie was leaving. Shit, shit, shit.

“I love you,” Eddie called weakly, feeling like it was the last weapon he had at his disposal.

Richie looked back at him from the doorway, face twisted up in hurt and grief. “No, you don’t.”

Eddie was too woozy to protest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen we've all done regrettable shit at cast parties
> 
> please please please come chat in the comments! or, as always at:  
> skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com :)


	5. Senior Year, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie interrupted his thoughts. “So. You wanna talk?”
> 
> Eddie didn’t want to talk. He wanted to kiss Richie so hard that they both forgot everything about what had happened between them, and then he wanted to start over from there.
> 
> He reined back his imagination and nodded slowly. “I think that would be a good idea.”

They didn’t talk to each other for a little while after The Incident.

Everything else was normal. They both ate at the same lunch table, both continued to socialize with their friends, both went through the motions of school. They just...didn’t talk to each other.

It fucking sucked.

Eddie missed Richie with everything in him, to the point where it was physically painful to even look at him most days. He knew he was the one that had fucked up - if he hadn’t had so much to drink, then things wouldn’t have escalated in the first place - but for the first time, it really, truly felt like Richie hated him, and that was almost unbearable.

More than that, it meant that Eddie didn’t have anyone he could talk to. Richie had morphed, over the summer, into not only friend and crush but confidante. Eddie trusted him implicitly - always had, even when things were rocky - and though he loved the rest of his friends, his relationship with them wasn't the same. Even Bev didn’t get him like Richie did - didn’t listen and understand like Richie could.

He found himself on the phone with Stan a lot.

“I don't know if you should talk to him, Eddie, I really don’t.” Stan sounded tired. He always sounded tired. College seemed exhausting. “You probably really freaked him out. I can’t imagine hooking up with someone only to realize after the fact that they weren't really in any position to consent.”

“I did consent,” Eddie insisted, cradling his cellphone to his ear and willing his mother to stay out of his room. “I wanted it. All of it.”

“Did you tell him that?”

Eddie sighed. “No. But he won’t even look at me.”

“If you tell him that, he might.”

“But--”

“Don’t call me if you don’t want my advice, Eddie,” Stan said, and hung up.

“I applied to NYU--” Eddie tried, hoping that a subject change would keep Stan on the phone, but he was already gone.

The winter play rolled around much like it always did - too quickly. Bill was absolutely beside himself with making sure that everything was running smoothly...no matter how many times Eddie assured him that yes, everything was running smoothly. Bev’s costumes were sublime, Ben’s set design was sophisticated and easy to work with and around (which Eddie very much appreciated, as SM), and Richie was brilliant in a part that had literally been written for him.

In short, it was perfect, and Eddie absolutely hated it.

He hated that every single thing on stage was a visual reminder of the fact that they were leaving; that it was their last straight play together. He hated Bill’s obsessing, and Bev’s incessant swatching, and Ben’s need to focus and refocus the lights.

Most of all, he hated having to watch Richie. The stage was where Richie belonged; where Eddie had fallen in love with him, and now, it was where Eddie came back to have his heart sliced open again and again and again. 

Sometimes, Richie would catch him looking. Those were probably the moments that sucked the worst. Neither of them had any idea what to do, so Eddie would end up angrily returning to his clipboard and Richie would shove his hands in his pockets and look down.

Stan was still on winter break through their final dress rehearsal, and so decided to come in to assess the play’s progress. (Eddie was pretty sure he was actually there to check out attractive, older Bill, but that was apparently neither here nor there...and besides, Stan and Mike were still going strong.) When he saw what was going on between Richie and Eddie, he all but ripped out his curls.

“Why didn’t you tell me that things were this bad,” he hissed once Eddie had given his end of show notes. Eddie had been careful not to include Richie in them for the last couple of runs because he didn’t want to seem vindictive...but there were some major prop switches that Richie needed to make, and Eddie knew that Stan had noticed each and every one. “It’s impacting the show.”

Eddie sighed. “I did tell you. Obviously you’re not listening to the shit I tell you over the phone.”

“No, I’m not,” Stan acquiesced. “Well, shit, Eddie.”

“Well, shit,” Eddie agreed, pulling the strings of his black hoodie tight enough that his face was enveloped in his hood.

“So let’s fix it.” Stan was not in the mood for pity parties (not now, and really not ever). He stood up once Ms. Starrett was finished giving acting notes, and crossed down through the sea of departing actors. Eddie watched him, frozen with panic.

“You mean right now?!”

“Right now,” Stan confirmed. “If the audience has to watch Richie Tozier walk onstage tomorrow with a dagger that looks like it came out of a Polly Pocket set, it will be your fault, and I will be sure to murder you personally. We are talking to him right now.”

“Tyrant,” Eddie moaned, shuffling reluctantly after him.

Richie’s face lit up when he saw Stan, and Eddie felt an ugly pang of jealousy - it had been weeks since Richie had looked at him with anywhere near that kind of excitement. 

“O Stanny boy, the pipes the pipes are calling!” Richie pulled Stan into a hug, which Stan returned with minimal enthusiasm and mild disgust. “What brings you back to hang with us lowly folk?”

“First and most importantly, I hate you,” Stan began, counting off on his fingers. “Second, grab a different knife from the prop table at the beginning of act two, for the love of God.”

Richie’s face fell. “I like the pink one, though.”

“Third,” Stan continued, plowing through at a rate that was making Eddie’s heart hammer, “I’ve got someone here who’d like to talk to you.”

“Mike?” Richie looked around with interest.

“I wish.” Stan took a moment to look wistful, and then reached back to pull Eddie forward. “Ta-da.”

Eddie swallowed hard and willed himself to sink through the floor.

Richie was pretending to look pleasantly surprised, but his switch to a shitty Russian accent betrayed the fact that Stan had actually put him off of his game. “Zees eeez...veddy unexpected, Comrade.”

“That’s me,” Stan said, purely monotone, “Mr. Unexpected.”

Richie and Eddie blinked back at him.

“Well, okay.” Stan ran a hand through his hair matter-of-factly. “My work here should never have started, but it did, and now it’s done, and I’m gonna go to Mike’s. Use protection if it comes to that, please.”

Neither of them felt like they were in a position to respond to Stan’s insult, so he was met with silence. This was clearly very satisfying for him; he walked away with a smile on his face. Richie and Eddie watched him until he reached the door.

Eddie didn’t want to be the first one to break the silence, so he turned back and looked at Richie’s hands instead. They were way bigger than his, and obviously not paid much mind to (there was a callous on the inside of his right pointer finger from his pencil, and there were pen scribbles up and down his arms from when he was bored in class), but Eddie had always thought that they were kind of beautiful.

Richie interrupted his thoughts. “So. You wanna talk?”

Eddie didn’t want to talk. He wanted to kiss Richie so hard that they both forgot everything about what had happened between them, and then he wanted to start over from there.

He reined back his imagination and nodded slowly. “I think that would be a good idea.”

“I think so, too.” Richie took a deep breath, and gestured to one of the rows of auditorium seats. “Wanna sit?”

“Sure.” Eddie sat in the space that Richie had gestured to, feeling awkward about how formal this all suddenly felt. Richie looked like he felt the same way, which was a small comfort.

Once they were both situated, Eddie geared himself up, and began.

“I guess I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he said, picking at his shoelaces.

Richie crossed his arms and slouched in his chair. “I’m not super sure what you’re sorry about. I’m the one that did the fucked up thing, remember?”

“No.” Eddie couldn’t bring himself to look at Richie. “No, Rich. I, uh, planned the getting drunk and talking to you thing. I planned it.”

“Okay, what.” Eddie knew that Richie’s eyes were on him; could almost feel them, like they were laser beams. “I don’t think I get it.”

“I wanted to be with you, and I didn’t think I was going to be brave enough to be honest about that if I was sober,” Eddie said, so quickly that it was basically incomprehensible. He forcibly jerked his head up to look at Richie - he didn’t want to know how much Richie was going to hate him, but he had to deal with the repercussions of all this properly or he’d be kicking himself for years, probably.

Eddie could practically see Richie deciphering and then processing the information he’d been given. His eyebrows went up, and he knitted his brow in concentration. “Okay. I mean - am I really that scary?”

“Sometimes,” Eddie admitted, feeling the tips of his ears go scarlet. “Mostly, I think I’m scared of myself.”

“And why is that?” Richie started to bounce his leg. Eddie was starting to feel anxious by proxy.

This crazy, stupid dancing around each other shit needed to stop. Eddie was going to put an end to it, right this instant.

“Because I want you so much,” Eddie breathed, looking Richie directly in the eyes. “I know you’re gonna break my heart, and I want you anyway.”

Richie inhaled softly and flexed his fingers, seemingly debating whether or not to touch Eddie. He ultimately withheld his hands, but he kept his eyes on Eddie, combing up and down.

“I didn’t date April because I liked her,” Richie finally said, tapping on his leg. “You know that, right?”

Eddie thought about it - remembered the sick, churning jealousy he used to feel when he saw Richie and April together. “I didn’t at the time.”

“And I didn’t leave you at the cast party because I didn’t want you,” he continued, closing his eyes. “I want you. I’ve wanted you since that first fucking day, when you sassed me back at the Workshop.”

“Oh.” Eddie didn’t know how to respond to that. His stomach was tied in so many knots that he was sure he wouldn’t be able to eat for weeks. He’d always assumed that Richie was joking - at least in the early days. “Why, um...why didn’t you tell me?”

Richie turned a little bit so that his upper body was facing Eddie. He was smiling, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re scary, too. And it’s hard, you know...when you’re a little shit who can’t fucking hold it together when his crush starts flirting back.”

Eddie didn’t know what he was talking about...and then suddenly, he did.

“Is that what happened sophomore year?” Eddie asked, genuinely curious. Richie chuckled.

“Yeah. My feelings were kicking my ass, and I saw something happening that I felt like I didn’t deserve, so I...bailed.”

“Are you gonna bail this time?” 

Eddie didn’t know what prompted him to say that, but he was a little mortified that he had. He buried his head in his hands, face burning red.

Before he had a chance to cool down, one of his hands was being tugged away from his face. Richie took it and held it between both of his own, like it was something precious.

“I’m gonna do my best,” Richie said softly.

This time, when he leaned in for a kiss, Eddie didn’t pull away.

\----

“So are you guys like, dating?” Ben squinted at the two of them, confused. 

It was the next day at lunch, and Richie had just finished recounting their post-rehearsal conversation to their friends...which was embarrassing as fuck, especially because Richie kept trying to embellish the things that he said to make it sound more badass...but it felt like stuff that everyone else needed to know. The group had put up with their shit for a long, long time.

Eddie shrugged. “Something like that.”

Bev stared between the two of them with murderous eyes.

“Something like that?! I listened to both of you asshats whine about your feelings for years! You’re dating, and that’s final! I deserve this!”

Richie sipped at his water bottle. “Yeah, okay.”

Still fuming, Bev pushed herself up and over to the hot lunch line. Richie and Eddie watched her go, and as soon as she was gone, put their joined hands on the lunch table.

“You know, me and Bev are dating,” Ben said, trying to add relevant information to the conversation.

“We know,” Richie, Eddie, Bill, and Audra chorused.

“Oh.” Ben thought about that. “Shit.”

“We’re all coupled off, now,” Bill said, giving Richie and Eddie a warm smile. “Fucking gross.”

“Fucking gross,” Eddie agreed, feeling almost serene for the first time in his whole adolescence.

\----

Sonia took the news considerably less well.

Eddie had turned eighteen back in September, and so was an adult and legally able to leave Sonia’s house should the need arise. This was the primary reason he decided to tell Sonia that he’d been actively disobeying her all year - if she tried anything, he could leave, and Richie had already offered his house as a sanctuary of sorts. Richie’s parents knew and understood the circumstances, and seconded Richie’s offer enthusiastically. (They’d met Eddie at cast events before, and when Richie brought him back to his house for the first time, Maggie Tozier had taken one look at the two of them, thrown her head back, and let out a big, hearty laugh - Richie’s laugh - and said “Oh, FINALLY, Richard.”)

Eddie would have loved to have had Richie there for the big reveal, but that would only have made things worse, guaranteed.

“Mama,” he said, on one otherwise unremarkable night in mid-March, “I have news.”

“If it’s to say that you got into that New York school, put the thought out of your head,” Sonia said irritably, “you’ll catch something awful in those disgusting subways.”

Eddie had, in fact, gotten into NYU’s College of Arts and Sciences for prehealth, but that wasn’t the conversation he was looking to have at the moment.

“It’s about Richie Tozier,” he said, bracing himself.

Sure enough, she whipped around, eyes glinting. “What about Richard Tozier, Edward?”

Eddie took a deep breath, looked her dead in the eyes, and bit the bullet. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Sonia genuinely didn’t know what to do with herself at that. Her face changed colors several times before settling on an unattractive purple, and she gestured wildly with her hands. It would have been funny if Eddie weren’t absolutely terrified.

“I knew he’d lure you back in,” she finally hissed. “Boys that... _evocative_...are nothing if they’re not preying on younger, nicer--”

“I’m older than Richie,” Eddie said, anger bubbling up in his throat, “it was his birthday last week...and he’s a good person, mama. I’m with Richie because he’s a good person.”

“He’s corrupted you.” Sonia reached for the landline, which was on the table next to her chair. “I’m calling the doctor.”

“I won’t go.” Eddie stood firm, even though his nerves were all but begging him to buckle. “I’m eighteen now, mom. I won’t go.”

They glared at each other for an uncomfortably long time. Eddie could see the fear in her eyes - the lack of understanding, the hatred - and he wondered, not for the first time, how he could have possibly grown up to be the person he was while living in her household.

“Go to your room,” she said once the silence became unbearable. “Don’t come back down.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Eddie muttered, climbing the stairs with great relief.

She stopped acknowledging him after that, for the most part. Eddie counted it as a win.

\----

The musical was a joyous experience, especially compared to the icy treatment Eddie was getting at home.

Ms. Starrett had picked a comedy for Richie, and he was absolutely thriving in his role. Every time he got to pratfall or do an exaggerated voice, his eyes would flick over to Eddie for a split second, and Eddie lived for those moments - lived to bask in that joy.

Well, really, actually, Eddie was living for every single moment he spent in Richie’s company. Eddie had quietly loved his time stage managing for the drama club since his freshman year. Losing himself in cues and notes and schedules was so easy, and he loved seeing the finished product and knowing that he’d played a central role in making things come to be.

There had only been one piece missing, and now that he had it, Eddie was _loudly_ loving his time stage managing. Mrs. Starrett couldn’t believe how drastically his mood had changed, and was being really nosy about trying to figure out the reason. (Eddie was pretty sure she already know and just wanted to hear him say it, but he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction after last year’s ‘Richie and Eddie bit’ debacle.)

The rest of the cast found it...extremely annoying.

“You know, I thought I wanted this,” Bev said after she caught Richie with his hands down Eddie’s pants in the costume closet for the fourth time, “but so help me God, if this happens again, I will castrate you both.”

“Does Ben know about your interest in our dicks?” Richie asked, not removing his hands from the bare skin of Eddie’s ass. Eddie closed his eyes and prepared for swift death by way of Beverly Marsh.

“Just make it quick this time, dumbass.” Beverly turned on her heel and left, obviously disgusted. “But then, it’s always quick for you.”

Eddie giggled against Richie’s lips as they listened to her leave. “She got you.”

“You got me,” Richie mumbled, groping Eddie’s ass with renewed interest. “You got all of me.”

“I did,” Eddie said, in wonder and amazement, kissing him fiercely. “Holy shit, I did.”

Like all joyous things, though, the musical was over far too soon. Before Eddie knew it, he was watching Richie, Bill, and Bev take their final bows, wearing matching togas and crying. (Eddie may also have been crying, but nobody needed to know that.) Richie looked offstage for a moment and blew him a kiss, eyes sparkling with tears and emotion, and Eddie flipped him off in return, heart full.

“You okay down there, Eddie?” Ben’s voice came cautiously over the headset. He was a junior and there was no need for him to shed any tears yet, so he was rather alarmed by his friends’ emotional outbursts.

“I’m not crying, Ben, shut up,” Eddie hissed into his headset.

“I didn’t say--”

“Shut _up_ ,” Eddie repeated, switching off his headset and turning back to the stage, trying to memorize the way Richie’s curls haloed in the stage lights.

Eddie skipped out on the final part of crew cleanup (he’d been in this program for four whole years; he deserved a little bit of leeway, and besides, Stan had done the same thing his senior year) to go greet Richie in the lobby after the show. He had pretty much stopped crying by then, so he figured he was safe to appear in public without anyone questioning his red eyes.

He was so wrong. As soon as he saw Richie standing with his parents, looking gleeful and absolutely wrecked, his eyes immediately started to burn with happy tears. 

“Richie,” he called, reaching into his bag to grab the comic books and candy he’d bought as a congratulatory present. (Richie always killed flowers, so that was out.) “C’mere!”

It took Richie a moment to locate him, but once he did, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. He bounded over to Eddie in four neat strides, reached out, and swooped him up in his arms, spinning him crazily. “Eds, Eds, Eds!”

“Oh my fuck--put me down, idiot!” Eddie banged on his shoulder, trying and failing to pretend to be upset. “I’ve got stuff for you, and you just made me drop it.”

“So sweet,” Richie cooed, getting in one more good spin before putting Eddie back down, “Spaghetti Kaspbrak really thinks that I’d want any gift but a date with his mo--”

“Shut UP,” Eddie groaned, pulling himself up on his tiptoes, “shut up, shut up.”

“With pleasure,” Richie agreed, pulling him in for a terrible (wonderful) kiss with too much teeth and Richie’s glasses pressed uncomfortably into Eddie’s face. Eddie heard Ms. Starrett give a little excited cheer behind him, and couldn’t help but giggle into Richie’s mouth. For all of her poking around, it was nice to know that they had her support.

“Edward.” Eddie jumped back at the sound of a second, uncomfortably familiar voice. Richie opened his eyes and peered out through his glasses, looking confused and a little hurt, but his expression morphed into extreme concern when he saw who was behind Eddie.

With a shudder, Eddie turned around to face his mother.

“Mom?”

Sonia looked uncharacteristically pensive. She wasn’t dressed as fancily as she usually did to leave the house - she was wearing a tracksuit and no garish jewelry - and her eyes were trained on the ground.

“I wanted to say,” she began, “that--”

“Mama don’t,” Eddie pleaded softly, looking anxiously between her and Richie.

“That I thought the show was very amusing,” she finished, looking up - not at him, but at Richie. “You performed very well, Richard.”

Richie shoved his hands into his pockets, stunned. “Uh. Thanks, Mrs. K.”

“I hope you’re proud, Edward.” Her eyes fell on Eddie, now, and it was all Eddie could do not to cry. He’d never imagined she’d make an effort - never in a million years thought that she’d be nice to Richie, or appreciate any of the things that Eddie enjoyed.

For all of the shit she’d put him through - and all of the shit she’d put him through in the future, because this wasn’t totally fixed yet, not by a long shot - she did love him, at the end of the day.

“Thank you, mama,” he whispered.

She straightened up. “I expect you back home by ten.”

“Yes,” he said numbly. “Okay.”

“Have a nice night, boys,” she said, turning to leave. “Be appropriate, and Eddie-bear...take your medicine.”

“Okay!” Eddie said, at the same time that Richie said, “You’re one in a million, Mrs. K!”

After she exited the door of the lobby, Eddie turned back to Richie. “Am I dreaming?”

“Fuck if I know.” Richie smiled, soft and sweet. “All dreams are good dreams when both me and your mother are involved, though--”

“Choke on a thousand dicks,” Eddie laughed, and kissed him again, dizzy with hope and disbelief.

He couldn't have asked for a more perfect closing night.

\----

By the time the drama awards happened, they all knew where they were going off to college - except for Richie.

Eddie had sent in his paperwork to NYU, and was incredibly excited to be able to start fresh in a place that was so...not Derry. His mother wasn’t thrilled about his decision, and was, alarmingly, looking for apartments just outside of the city so as to be nearer to him, but Eddie was handling that. It was nice to feel like he could handle that, now.

(Stan was kind of upset that Eddie hadn’t chosen to join he and Mike in Boston, but given that Bill was enrolled in Boston University’s playwriting program, he couldn’t complain.)

Bev was headed to the city, too - she was going to study fashion at Parsons, which Eddie thought was just perfect. Ben wasn’t graduating until the year after, but he was already looking into NYU (or Columbia, as a reach) for architecture and design.

Richie had gotten into some schools - SUNY Pace and Purchase for acting, as well as Emerson in Boston (Stan had voiced some concerns about having Richie in Boston, but Eddie was pretty sure he was secretly hoping for it to happen), but he was still waiting to hear back from his first choice, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He and Eddie were both going a little crazy over the lack of response - Richie because it was his future, and Eddie because he felt like they deserved to be in the same place for the next four years, after all the shit they’d gone through to be together.

The letter came on the day of the awards, and Richie all but had a nervous breakdown.

“I was already terrified of not getting anything tonight, but now this?” Richie brandished the letter at Eddie like it was on fire. “This?!?”

The letter was tellingly large. Eddie rolled his eyes.

“They don’t send all this shit to people who don’t get in, you absolute nerd,” Eddie sighed, taking the offending object from Richie’s hands. “You want me to open it?”

“Please,” Richie mumbled, bouncing on the soles of his feet. “Just...rip off the bandaid.”

Eddie tore open the white paper and extracted a folder. He opened it, and felt his own nerves melt away.

“Congratulations, Richard Tozier,” Eddie read triumphantly, “you’re gonna act at NYU!”

Richie leapt at Eddie so ferociously that the two of them went toppling down onto the grass of Richie’s front lawn. Eddie couldn’t bring himself to care about the inevitable grass stains on the back of his polo - instead, he reached for Richie and kissed every inch of space on his face that he could reach. Finally, finally, _finally_ , the universe was giving them a go-ahead.

“This is the best day of my fucking life,” Richie crowed, grabbing Eddie’s face and kissing him back firmly. “Which program did they put me in?”

Eddie re-opened the folder. “Uh. Experimental theatre wing?”

“Yesssss,” Richie breathed, “the weird shit. Oh, Eds, the future’s gonna kick ass for us, isn’t it?”

“It better,” Eddie said, curling himself against Richie and burying his face in his shoulder. “No, it will. We’ll be together, so it will.”

“Cute, cute, cute.” Richie snaked his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. “Hey, do you think you’ll pick back up with stage management when you’re there? You know...for me?”

“Don’t ruin it,” Eddie warned, words half-muffled by Richie’s shoulder.

Richie laughed. “Just a thought. You know...for youherrrrr considehrrratiohnnnn,” he finished, moving into an unplaceable accent.

“We’ll figure shit out when we get there,” Eddie said, giving Richie a halfhearted shove for using a stupid voice. 

Whatever happened, it would be okay. They’d figure it out together.

\----

And if Eddie _was_ considering continuing to stage manage, well...Richie didn’t have to know that until later.

\----

Eddie Kaspbrak loved theatre.

There were a lot of things about him that he wasn’t super sure about, but that much he knew was unequivocally true. He loved the lights, the sets, the way the mood changed when the lights went down. He loved knowing that everything was in its place; he loved being the person that called the shots to make the magic happen. He even loved the people - he knew that all of the friends he’d made there over the years were friends that he’d keep forever.

Most of all, though, Eddie loved watching Richie Tozier do theatre. He loved seeing Richie perform, he loved watching him win the award for ‘Best Overall Acting’ at their senior drama awards, and he loved the fact that Richie was going to be able to move on and do the thing that he was so absolutely tremendous at.

Eddie Kaspbrak loved theatre...and Richie Tozier, and that was that.

End scene, blackout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's that! Thanks for hangin' with me, theatre nerds, and happy Richie Tozier's birthday!
> 
> time to start on my doozy of a next project.
> 
> come down to the comments to feed my dumb dramatic soul, or get at me at skeletonscribbles.tumblr.com


End file.
